


The (actual) Complete Season 12

by wolf_shadoe



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fix-It, Missing Scene, Season/Series 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-25 23:00:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 47,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolf_shadoe/pseuds/wolf_shadoe
Summary: Solid Spuffy, fully canon compliant; these things are not antithetical in my brain. We all know that 'break up' was an act.But as Joss said on writing S12, "And then they said, "You have four issues," and it was like "Ohhhh. That's all the time we have." So we dealt with a lot of things in small panels, and I don't know if I fit it all in..."He didn't, but that's cool, because I've filled in the gaps for him ;)





	1. PART 1: ONE YEAR LATER - #A

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone let down by S12, and everyone who avoided it.  
Canon-compliant to every word of dialogue and every panel; approximately one quarter of the full word count of this fic is transcribed from action and dialogue of Season 12 by Joss Whedon, Christos Gage, and Georges Jeanty.   
However: turns out I'm unable to transcribe in American, so spelling has been Britishised. And punctuation tweaked for the format.  
Explanations where necessary of events from seasons 8-11, spoilers ahoy.  
Draft complete at 10 chapters, will update daily.  
Betaed by the fantastic Micrindle23 💙  
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Four years ago, Buffy journeyed to the future and met Slayer Melaka Fray and Fray's vampire twin brother, Harth. Fray thought Buffy's knowledge of the future would change history, erasing her world... but it didn't.

A year has passed since rogue government forces tried to enslave magical beings and steal their power. While humanity knows the supernatural exists, it has retreated to the shadows. And there have been other changes...

  
  
  


**** The 23rd Century.  
  


Torture was just so  _ noisy _ . Kamik sighed to himself as the lurk's screaming hit another piercing crescendo. There must be a way to include some kind muting spell in the bindings the next time he had to do this. These ropes of magical energy held the captured lurk in place tidily enough, but surely the assault on his eardrums could be improved on.   


Distracted by a mark on the crimson fabric of his favourite ceremonial robe, Kamik let the mystical fire surrounding the lurk's head flicker down momentarily, before flaring it back up to a greater height than ever. He'd be ready to talk soon. Standing in a loose semi-circle behind him, the faces of his acolytes ran the gamut from 'mild interest' to 'teeth gritted in horrified fascination'. Thirlore, it was, with the fascination. He'd have to keep an eye on him.   


Scowling, Kamik raised his hand again, shifting his fingers to pull the flames back slightly. "I'll stop the pain, but only as long as you listen.  _ Attentively _ ," he said. The scream died. When the silence held, Kamik began, "Any sorcerer worth his name knows the legend of  _ The Reckoning _ . The last stand of the last Slayer, over two hundred years ago. The Slayer and her allies faced an apocalyptic army of demons. By the time it was done, so were they. The demons banished to a hell dimension. Vampires all but wiped out, devolving into present-day  _ lurks _ . The Slayer herself gone, and no others called… until  _ Melaka Fray _ , just recently. That's the legend, anyway. Vague and unreliable, as legends are." The sorcerer moved closer, snarling his next words into the pained face of his hostage. "But my sources tell me that you, little lurk, are Fray's  _ twin brother, Harth _ . And that, while she got the Slayer's  _ power _ , you ended up with the  _ memories _ … of every Slayer that ever was. Which means you know what  _ really  _ happened during The Reckoning, and you're going to tell me."

Harth lifted his eyes wearily. He was glad the bastard hadn't broken his glasses with all that magic slinging, but wished he could push them back up before they slid any further down his nose. "It… wasn't just demons," Harth told him. "It was vampires, too. And they weren't fighting one Slayer, but  _ many _ . The Slayers did meet their end that day. They weren't all killed. Most just lost their powers and memories. But she was gone forever."

" _ Buffy Summers _ . Yes..." Kamik said, "...the same Buffy Summers who came to our era not long ago. And by doing so, made the timeline… wobbly. Left a trail, if you will, back to her time. A trail that can be  _ followed _ ..." Stepping back, the sorcerer lifted his left hand, brandishing a wooden scepter. Around a foot and a half long, it was wound with copper bindings and topped by a rugged-looking natural stone. "...with the  _ Scepter of the Veils _ , which I've spent countless credits and lives to acquire. Now I can go back to Buffy Summers' era. Take advantage of the Reckoning to make myself  _ all-powerful _ . Then return here, kill your sister, and  _ rule  _ this world." He shook his fist at Harth with the last words.   


_ Pretentious bastard.  _ "I like it. One note: it should be  _ me _ ."

"Ha ha ha. You? A common  _ lurk? _ Who crumbles to ash at a simple stake through the heart? You're funny, Harth. I believe I'll keep you around. You might yet have useful information, and you amuse me. But never forget. I can destroy you utterly-" Something jostled his elbow; one of the acolytes. They were all far too close, moving nearer in the excitement and crowding him rudely. "What are you doing, idiots?  _ Get back!  _ You've  _ ruined  _ my threat! Now I have to start over-  _ urkk!" _ Kamik's voice turned into a wet, bubbly attempt at a shout as a pointed wooden staff burst out through the front of his chest, spraying blood in an arc before him. 

Harth relieved him of the scepter as he fell to the floor. "Such contempt for us lowly 'lurks'. So much, you didn't bother to do your research..." Harth mused, a self-satisfied smile on his face. "...Hardly anyone today knows that lurks -- vampires -- can assume human form. Even  _ they'd  _ forgotten." He straightened his glasses at last, watching the turned acolytes tear into Kamik with their fangs revealed. "Until I showed them  _ how _ ." He lifted the scepter high, revelling in his victory. "Thank you for the scepter. I couldn't go back in time without it. And I have to admit, your defences are more than we could breach. So it was nice of you to invite me in… but only fair, after the effort I went to, turning your minions one by one. Your sources --  _ me _ , in case you hadn't guessed -- were right. There  _ is  _ unlimited power to be had." Harth let his own gameface rise, eyes glowing red and fangs bared, a growl slipping into his voice. "Presiding over the end of the Slayers in  _ two  _ different timelines... is just blood-icing on the cake."

  
  
  


_ "The trouble with changing the world is...the world changes." -- Buffy Summers, early 21st century. (From  _ Tales of the Slayers, _ Watcher Press, 2027.) _

** Now. A year after the last "Now." **

** (San Francisco, 2011) **

  
Buffy leaned over the crib, hands reaching out to scoop up the perfect little bundle of baby that was raising her tiny hands in turn. "Who's the cutest little nugget? Wait for it...  _ you  _ are!" A familiar-looking pink pig sat on one edge of Joyce’s bed, and Buffy gave it a smile too as she straightened, nestling the baby up against her chest. Joyce's gingery baby hair had this scent to it that Buffy couldn't stop sniffing for, something uniquely her own that did funny things to Buffy’s insides. And those cheeks were just impossibly soft for pressing kisses to. "Sorry to keep you in suspense, but when you get older, you'll figure out it's  _ always  _ you, so I have to milk it while I can. Speaking of milk, it's time for Mommy to feed you, isn't it? Gotta keep those cheeks fat and pinchable--"

" _ Buffy! _ Are you wearing your scythe around the baby again?"

"Aw, crap."  _ Sprung. _

"Give me my child. You are banned from baby privileges until you respect the no-deadly-weapons rule!" Dawn exclaimed as she walked in, hands reaching for her daughter and a soppy smile growing.   


Buffy was doing the smile too -- and the silly voice thing, for that matter -- but somehow it couldn't be resisted. "You ratted me out, didn't you, Joyce? It's okay, you're too adorable to stay mad at," Buffy told her niece as she handed her over.

"Xander, take my sister to the weapons cabinet and explain how I have a  _ locking weapons cabinet _ in my new house for a  _ reason _ ," Dawn said with a wry smile, unbuttoning her shirt and latching Joyce on to a nipple. Xander stopped in the doorway, and Buffy gave him a pseudo-innocent look as she unbuckled the scythe from her back and handed it over. "And for the last time, please stop ogling my boobs while I nurse our baby," Dawn added.   


"They got  _ so much bigger! _ I'm just in awe of the wonders of nature! Did you know that if Joyce gets a cold, the antibodies in the milk change to help her fight it?" he told Buffy, waving a hand towards Joyce's little face intently suckling at Dawn’s breast.   


"Yes, Xander, you've told me," Buffy said. "With the stem cells, and the refilling itself, and the leaking out when Joyce cries…"

Xander dropped his hand, slightly abashed.   


"It's cute," she told him with a grin, patting his shoulder. "You're doing great, Mr Over-Enthusiasm." He smiled back, and now they all had that dopey look on their faces. Joyce had magic of some kind, she was sure of it. Special baby-thrall-powers or something.   


Xander led her down the hall. He'd grown his hair out over the past year, sunbleached auburn waves falling to the edge of his shoulders. Added to the eyepatch and the proud smile that was virtually ever-present of late, it gave him a sort of rakish and jaunty charm that Dawn very obviously adored.   


"New place working out?" she asked him. "You and Dawnie don't miss the city?"

"We don't miss anything but sleep. This place is great, and there's a ton of construction jobs. Outrageous housing prices in San Fran mean work for me in the ever-widening bedroom communities." Entering the living room, he bent a little, bringing his head closer to hers and looking slightly apologetic. "Listen, I asked you to come a little early to make sure you're gonna be okay. Spike being here and all."

She gave him a dry look. They'd been over and over this. Spike was part of the team before he and she had got together - back together - whatever - and it was normal and expected that he would remain part of the team now that they'd 'broken up'. It wasn't that weird to be at the same party as your ex and  _ not _ have a raging fight in the middle of it, was it? Because she wasn't planning on staging one, if that was what he was worried about. They'd wake the baby. And destroy the house. And probably blow this whole thing by shagging on the front lawn. Besides, they  _ all  _ needed the practice. At lying, not shagging. Although Willow was looking lonely lately. Anyway, the story was hardly going to hold up to outside scrutiny if the six of them couldn't keep it together for an evening. Starting now, it seemed. "Xander, we've  _ seen  _ each other since the breakup. It was mutual. We're not mad at each other or anything." Unless… he hadn't said something to Xander, had he? She was certain they had everything firm and clear between them, but the reality of lonely hours apart had been a shock to her, and he could be so insecure... "Wait, is  _ he  _ mad at  _ me _ ?"

"Of course not. It might be, y'know, still a little raw--" The sound of the front door opening and closing in the hall to his back stopped him before he could finish. " _ Spike!" _ he said, turning. "I was, uh, just talking about the steak! More blood for you!"

She watched from the living room as he handed Xander a bottle of wine, looking perfectly relaxed. Her spidey-senses were zinging down her spine and taking a rush of blood south with them, everything in her sparking to attention at his deliciously familiar presence. Oh, how she'd missed him. He  _ had  _ to be feeling her too, but there wasn't a flicker of a tell anywhere on him to let her know that he'd missed her in turn. His face was calm and fully focused on greeting Xander, his grip on the wine bottle soft and easy. She suddenly wished he'd stayed outside a minute longer so she could have heard what Xander was going to say.   


"You have a 'come on in' sign on the door," he told Xander. "That counts as an invitation for my lot. Think you would've learned by now."

Okay, Xander, that was going too far. He could have put Spike's name on it at least, instead of leaving the place open to any wandering vamps just to make sure his friend could waltz into his new house in customary entitled style.   


Then Spike was crossing the room, flowing inexorably towards her as if drawn by gravity. He stopped toe-to-toe with her, eyes fixed on hers, and _oh, _there it was - everything hidden by his steady hands and calm face was pouring forth from his wide open ocean coloured eyes. She held his gaze for endless moments, swimming in the torrent of hunger and want and relief and overwhelming love until she felt her own eyes glistening wetly too. He breathed in silent shallow little pants, nostrils flaring, and the '_this whole_ _smelling people thing is gross'_ that rose in her mind was a jealous complaint, because she needed to bury her face in his neck and fill herself with his scent too. She blinked it back, blinked it all back, and reached for words appropriate to their charade. "Hey," she murmured, and watched a soft smile spread across his face. They were okay. "You're early."

"Yeah. I was just…"  _ missing you.  _ He blinked too, looking like he was struggling for words as much as she was. Then his chin jutted forward slightly in teasing challenge as he lifted his hands to count off on his fingers, "Out. For. A. Walk." He flipped his hand into a shaka sign, surfie slang for friendship and solidarity, and waggled it at her. "Bitch."   


She wondered suddenly why she hadn't paused to read into it that first occasion, the dualities (trialities?) of Spike presented in a friendly gesture to accompany an expletive that was also part endearment.   


His eyes skittered away and down to the far corner of the room as he dropped the hand sign to rub at the back of his neck nervously, bravado forgotten. "I wasn't really calling you a bitch. I was referencing that time when--"

"I remember," she said softly. His eyes dove back to hers, the relief in them evident. Silly vampire. And oh, he was wearing the shirt, that creamy french vanilla buttondown… he must have sewn the buttons back on since…. She mimicked his shaka sign with a quick  _ here's our secret code  _ smile before bringing the hand up to rub at her chin as if contemplating the options. "I was just trying to decide if I should punch you in the nose, but that'd screw up the order."   


She held out her arms, unable to hold back any longer from  _ touching  _ him at last. There was nothing suspicious about a hug, surely? She'd hugged Xander at the door, after all, and she'd do the same when the others arrived.   


Spike's arms wrapped around her, hands firm on her back as he clasped her to him. She pressed her head down into his shoulder and the side of his neck, willing her fingers to look casual as they crushed themselves hard against the leather of his coat to dig into his shoulder blades beneath. "It's good to see you, Spike," she got out in a fairly normal-sounding voice.  _ This _ was what she'd ached for during the past two weeks, this indefinable sensation of being held safe and firm and loved. It melted into her like sun-warmed lemonade.   


"And you, Slayer," he said in the same voice. Lips buried in her hair, he whispered quickly, " _ Love you. _ "

Her breath hitched, and the stupidity of this whole thing twisted up in her chest. Unable to trust herself to reply without canning the plan, she dug her fingertips in harder, knowing he'd feel everything she couldn't say.

"The housewarming party hasn't even begun, and already my house is warmed," Xander announced loudly.  _ Break it up, guys. _   


They pulled back from each other, hands dropping reluctantly to their sides, but the sense of having been fortified stayed with her to warm her through.   


Xander's smile sparkled now, whatever worries he'd had for the evening alleviated by their greeting. Waving the wine bottle towards the kitchen, he said, "C'mon in, let's start this shindig."

**** Later...  
  


“It’s permanent then, Giles?" Spike asked the newly-restored-to-adulthood watcher. As much fun as it'd been to ruffle up four foot tall teenage Giles's hair and threaten him with an early bedtime, he was glad the man was back to normal at last. Seeing the middle-aged, tweed-skinned librarian resurrected into the body he'd had at twelve years old had just been… wrong. Sure, it was a damn sight better than no Giles, and over the past three and a half years they'd all adjusted until no one thought twice about it most of the time, but the hormone-driven mood swings of puberty had been outright disturbing. "You won’t be changing into, say, a ninety-year-old cat lady? On the  _ outside, _ I mean.”

“Yes, all done and dusted. The spell could only restore me to my true age. Pity that, I’d have loved to shave off a few years," Giles finished wistfully. Now fifty-seven years old, he was looking good enough that Spike wasn't convinced he hadn't in fact done exactly that. But was hardly about to tell him so.

“Hey, you kept your hair, everything else is gravy. I think you look distinguished,” Buffy said, smiling happily at him. He'd kept the magic, too; after rediscovering his abilities with his youth, he'd eventually resigned himself to accepting his immature body for the advantage a second spell-slinger gave them in battle. But several years of working with magic daily had strengthened his connection and fluency until he was finally able to make the transition without losing his skill.   


“'Distinguished' means 'ancient', you realise…” Spike commented dryly.   


Giles scratched his head, self-conscious of the hint of grey now sprinkled through it again, but there was affection in the wry smile he replied with. Somewhere along the road gratitude had melted into respect, and finally into a solid and mutual friendship that would once have seemed impossible. He raised his glass, and with a smile Spike clinked it with his own.

Feet tucked beneath her on the couch, Dawn chatted to Willow over cups of herbal tea while Xander stood leaning over the back of it. “Willow, that natural moisturiser recipe --  _ so good! _ I turned everyone at 'Mommy and Me' on to it,” Dawn bubbled.   


“You’re like a Wiccan version of that actress’s lifestyle blog. But, like, with  _ good _ advice, not 'get stung by bees on purpose',” Xander added.   


“The blog’s really the least of it. The Center’s about fostering women’s empowerment and a connection to the natural world,” Willow said with humble pride. They'd hardly seen her this month with all the extra hours she'd been putting in there, but the final meditation gardens were due to be opened next week, and she'd begged baby dates after that. “I’m kinda surprised how many slayers have joined. Which is handy, considering all the  _ threats _ we get.” Willow's expression darkened slightly.

“Speaking for the patriarchy, we do not appreciate having our uselessness pointed out,” Xander said jokingly, ever willing to make himself the punchline if it would put a smile on a friend's face. The self-assurance he'd eased into at last had turned the habit from something slightly despairing into a comfortable easy humour, and Dawn dropped her hand over the back of the couch to snag one of his belt loops and tug her adorable man closer.   


“We can handle trolls," Willow said dismissively. "I’m worried the  _ government  _ will see us as a threat, like when we had the Slayer army going.”   


Oh yes, the ever-present invisible threat of another national witch hunt, as they'd faced when the supernatural first came to public attention. Buffy herself had only recently been fully restored to 'upstanding citizen' on paper (and they were all crossing their fingers it would hold). It was only eighteen months since she'd insisted on accompanying Spike and Willow to the concentration camp they'd been exiled to on government orders, alongside the rest of the non-Slayer supernatural population of America. Willow still had red warning signs splattered across her own FBI file, and they were sure to be eyeing her work at the Center with heavy suspicion.   


“But Riley assures me he’s not letting that happen. And the days of letting other people’s prejudices stop me from doing what feels right are  _ long  _ gone,” Willow finished with a flash of determination.   


"How is Riley?" Dawn asked. "I heard Sam made a flying visit?" 

  
  


** And still later. **

In one corner of the room, Xander was doing a lively reenactment of some incident at work, while Spike and Giles watched with expressions trending more towards bemusement than amusement. Dawn’s phone dinged at her, and as she picked it up to check the message, Willow patted her on the knee and left to refill her wine glass in the kitchen.   


Returning to the living room, she walked over to where Buffy sat on the window seat, elbows on her knees and staring at the carpet with a face that could only be described as glum.

“You okay?" Willow asked. "Are things with Spike-”

“We’re fine. I think the quiet of the past year made us  _ both _ realise we didn’t really work as a couple when nothing’s going wrong," Buffy parroted flatly. Sticking to script there then. Did that mean nothing was wrong, or were the lies suddenly feeling too true? Buffy continued, “It’s… I’m starting to think it’s not  _ me and Spike  _ that doesn’t work in times of normal…" she petered out, the frustration on her face making Willow fear for the life of the wine glass she held by her knees.

Right, this was definitely more than 'my boyfriend's across the room and I'm sick of pretending we've separated'. Perhaps the time on her own to reflect was getting to her; the rest of them had all been so busy lately, while Buffy’s life was quieter than she'd ever known. "Spill, misery-guts. There's no one else here, and this house is warded to the rafters." Buffy raised her eyebrows, sceptical. Waving a hand back and forth, Willow thickened the air slightly in a bubble around them, just enough to muffle the sound of the room and give them better privacy. Lifting a brow at Buffy in return, she said, "There. Now, what's really up?"

"Thanks. But it's nothing really. It's just me." Buffy sighed and sat up slightly, staring distantly at the back of the couch. “I mean, I’m  _ thirty. _ Everyone’s growing… you with the Center, Giles literally…” she nodded over at him. “Dawn and Xander have a life, a house, a baby. Even Faith's… And I’m… consulting for the police.  _ Still.” _

“Well, police work  _ is  _ what the guidance counsellor said you should do.” Willow tried.

“I know. And they asked me to come aboard full-time. But would having a normal job mean I’m a normal person?” She turned towards Willow at last, watching her from the corners of her eyes. “Normal person stuff  _ never _ works out for me. Does that mean I’ll inevitably screw  _ it  _ up?” She sighed again. “Or is this different because I’d still be able to hit monsters and occasionally people? It’s a grey area, and grey is not my colour.”

“Buffy, I’ll tell you a secret: normal people are just winging it too," Willow said conspiratorially. “Don’t pressure yourself. Take some time, figure out what you want, what makes you happy. You’re in a good place for that.” Smiling, she added, "Whatever happened to Miss ' _ I never have time to shop _ '?"

Buffy gave her a crooked smile, then looked back at the floor. “You’re right. I need to take some Buffy time. And it is nice to be able to do that, without relationship stuff complicating things-” The sound of the doorbell cut her off, softened though it was by their anti-spy bubble. “Is that the door?” she asked, setting her wine glass down before rising. 

Flicking her fingers, Willow released the thickened air. “I thought Andrew couldn’t make it."

“Who?” Buffy said, looking back at Willow with a cheeky grin as she went to let him in. Spike had crossed the room to stand at her shoulder before she'd finished opening it; if he was using the minuscule possibility of a polite doorbell-ringing attacker as an excuse to brush against her, no one would catch her complaining. “ _ Kidding!" _ she told Willow. "He said he’d catch an earlier flight, so it could be-” Or not.  _ Fuck. _ “-Angel and Illyria. Because of course, people who live in England just show up without calling," she finished, unable to keep a note of hardness from her voice. This was exactly what they did  _ not _ need this month.   


“Phones keep changing. It’s confusing,” Angel said, shrugging one shoulder slightly. “I saw the sign, but didn’t want to be rude. You should really take that down, anything could walk right in.”

“Just what I said. Hello, wanker. Blue bonnet,” Spike said, his shoulder brushing against the back of her own.   


She rolled her eyes up at him;  _ can you believe this? Groan. _

“If this is a bad time…” Angel said flatly, “...I don’t really care. We’ve got a crisis on our hands.”

_ Of course we do. _ She'd bloody jinxed them the moment she decided she was going to try and enjoy some quiet time to herself.   


Spike shifted slightly, bringing his shoulder around in front of hers protectively. Sure, the three of them had worked great as a team the last time a situation had required it, but add this breakup act and things were definitely going to get awkward. If he was going to be around longer than the one evening, perhaps they could let him in on the whole situation. But that wasn't her choice to make. And even if they did, there'd still be room for barbs to sink.

Illyria fixed her with those eerie blue eyes. “There is no need for conflict, Slayer. That your former paramour is my lover may offend your mortal sensibilities…” She tilted her head to the opposite side, “...but as one warlord to another,  _ arrangements  _ can be made. Perhaps brief loans, in return for hair products. The Fred creature’s mane continues to vex me.”   


_ And here I once thought Anya could be awkward.   
_

Angel dropped his face into his hand, cringing. “That’s- No one cares about any of that. She’s with Spike now."

Buffy raised her palms in front of her chest at the same time Spike did, and wondered briefly if they weren't attempting to ward off the presence of Angel more than simply refute his words.   


“We broke up," they said together. Their eyes found each other sidelong, and she hoped hers were whispering her apology as well as his were as they continued the recitation, "It was mutual and the right decision and we’re all fine with it."

Angel looked surprised. She turned her back and led them in quickly before he could comment. It didn’t work.

“ _ Do I look smug? I’m trying not to look smug _ ,” Angel whispered behind his hand to Illyria as they entered the living room.   


Did Angel honestly expect them not to catch that? No, of course he did. Or at least, for Spike to. Following at her back, Spike's feet slowed at the words and his head turned partway back to Angel, his cynical expression telling her exactly how ready he was to whip around and correct Angel with the fact that actually, after two and a half years they were as solidly together as ever right now. More. Just not publicly. For reasons they shouldn't be sharing. Just like they shouldn't be sharing that much.  _ Dammit. _

“You primitives… such complex mating rituals," Illyria was replying, utterly indifferent to (and probably confused by) Angel's fake attempt at subtlety, "In my day, it was simpler. Of course, few of my conquests survived the process. The tentacles, you see-”   


“ _ Hey! _ Who wants to talk about the apocalyptic crisis event? Raise your hand,” Buffy called loudly, lifting her own high.  _ Apocalypse, deliver me now. _

Willow moved to the couch and sat down, attempting to alter the feel of the room. Everyone turned to Angel expectantly -- well, she was pretending that was what their expressions meant -- and he assumed his serious business face. Which was also his brooding face. And his neutral face. And  _ dear God  _ what was wrong with her tonight, emotions bouncing all over the place and now landing firmly on… well,  _ bitchy. _

“Hi, everyone," Angel said belatedly. "Sorry to crash the party, but my sources tell me dark forces are merging near here. And where there’s an evil merger, there are lawyers.” He waited; no one smiled. “My old coworkers at  _ Wolfram & Hart _ are coordinating an attack on Willow and the Slayers working with her.”

“I  _ knew _ it!” Willow spat, hands tightening into fists and face livid. Xander gave her an apologetic frown.

Angel continued, serious business face becoming sterner (serious-serious business face?), “Not just demons. Factions in the human world -- dictators, plutocrats -- people who see the increasing power and influence of your movement as a threat.”   


One hand lifting in angry gesture, Buffy turned towards the hallway, scowling back over her shoulder at Angel. “So it’s a big team-up. Seen it before, squashed it before. Xander, where’s the keys to the weapons cabinet?”  _ Sooner I squash it, sooner you can leave. _

“This is different," Angel said. "They’re getting intel from someone -- a vampire from the  _ future _ . For him it’s all ancient history.”   


Buffy paused, a finger coming up to rest over her top lip. “I have a bad feeling I know who that is.” Turning back to face them, she said, “Guy named  _ Harth _ . Twin brother of the 23rd century slayer.”  _ And wasn't that trip the funnest of times. _ “Some kinda cosmic twin-glitch gave him the ancestral slayer memories... so he doesn’t just know the history, he  _ remembers _ it.”

Giles touched his own hand to his chin --  _ watcher mode activated _ . Did she pick up the gesture from him? Or maybe it was one of those universal human things. Perhaps she'd know, if her psych class hadn't turned out the way it did… she still had time to go back to university, didn't she? People did stuff like that in their thirties. Didn’t they? Or she could take a night class. Anyone could take those. Around her night job. Maybe there was one her and Spike could do together, and patrol on the way home… he'd probably know everything already and she'd feel left behind. What the heck was this, a mid-life crisis? Because,  _ unfair _ , Slayers should get that out of the way at eight years old and move on. Maybe it was a post-expiry crisis. Failure of planned obsolescence, thy name is Buffy.   


But -- no. Apocalypse. She wasn't obsolete yet.

“Troubling," Giles said. "Illyria, don’t you possess some command over time? Could we perhaps send him back whence he came?”

“My temporal abilities in my current form are… limited. And have proved difficult to control," she replied.   


“If he knows everything we’re going to do, how can we stop them?” Dawn asked, throwing her palms out in query.

Willow stood, anger resurfacing to lend volume to her voice. “This vampire coming here  _ changes _ history. Maybe enough to give us an edge… if we can take them by surprise.”

“I like it," Xander agreed. "We shut ‘em down  _ before _ they can get the whole evil gang together, while they’re still making the seating chart.”

“I agree," Angel said. "Faith has eyes on them now. It’s a good time.”   


“Like I said. Weapons cabinet,” Buffy snapped, striding towards the door. As she passed behind Xander, she held a palm back towards him and he tossed her the key.

“Dawn, stay with Joyce," Xander told her. "It’s too late to find a sitter.”   


“Me?" she growled, crossing her arms. If she could push out a baby, then a little demon-fighting was nothing, and Xander had damn well better remember that. "Why don’t  _ you _ stay with her? If this is some sexist-”

“It’s not," he said quickly, wrapping his arms around her. She held herself stiffly, arms still crossed, but he ignored that to press his head against the side of hers and run a hand down her hair. "I can’t feed her, can I? And only you sing the sleepy song the way she likes it.”

She sighed. He was right. Only… she knew too well that running off to do battle was easier than being the one left behind by the phone, heart in your throat and targetless adrenaline making you twitch and pace and fidget. And of course they were going to expect her to be the one sending them there, popping open a portal door with her key powers. “All right," she grumbled. "But keep me updated. And don’t do anything stupid.”

"I won't," he swore. 

“My favourite part of a party: the favours,” Buffy announced, returning from the weapons cabinet with an armload of nicely sharp pointy things. She set most of her haul down on the table, then slipped the scythe's strap over her head before tossing a sword and short battleaxe Spike’s way. “Gear up, people. Let’s change the future…  _ by hitting it really hard. _ ”


	2. PART 1: ONE YEAR LATER - #B

** The offices of Wolfram & Hart, Silicon Valley.  **

With everyone gathered everyone in the lobby, Harth rechecked his watch as a grinklop demon approached him.

“I’ve pulled the blueprints for Willow Rosenberg’s Center, Mr Harth," the grinklop announced, handing over a roll of papers and bowing with (rather false) subservience.   


Harth opened the blueprints, finding the Center’s layout was precisely as he recalled. “Beautiful. Okay, I’ll map out everyone’s attack point based on my best recollections.”

A deep, booming voice spoke from near ceiling level. “This does not sit well with me. Setting aside the atrocity of  _ Tauron, _ duke of the blood plains, taking commands from a dwarf gutter-vampire…” Tauron began. Again. He seemed to think that being the size of a small building and looking like the product of an illicit liaison between Satan and a bulldog gave him the right to object. “...why should we attack the Slayers and the witch in their place of power?”

If only the slack's brains were proportionate to his immense size. For a moment Harth entertained himself with an image of a tiny mouse sitting behind a bank of monitors somewhere in the creature’s massive head, cackling maniacally as it crushed buildings. “Because that’s where I  _ remember  _ it happening, and where I remember  _ you winning. _ That is what you want, right?” Harth sneered up at him.

Tilting his green, bat-like wings, Dave dropped lower in the air to study the blueprints over Harth's shoulder. While reading, he hissed to Tauron, “We’ve confirmed this creature’s temporal energies hail from days yet to come, Tauron. He speaks the truth."

Harth lifted the papers higher; Dave, for one, would be at the battle at the Women's Center, so it made sense to familiarise him with the layout. The lurk standing at his right shoulder, however… he was wasting time planning any further ahead than the next few minutes. To Tauron he added, “Of course, if you think you’re so  _ rocketship  _ you want to purposely change history just to feed your ego, and throw away a  _ guaranteed win- _ ”   


“You know what?” a perky voice cut in, whipping everyone’s attention to the other side of the lobby.

Slapping the papers into the chest of the nearest demon, Harth jabbed his thumb towards the back offices for her to stash them out of the line of fire, then turned his own face to the intruders.   


“I like that plan,” Buffy continued. “Let’s do that one.”   


It was… almost cute. The Slayer stood at the head of her little band, scythe raised before her and one hand out in a stopping gesture as she glared daggers at him. Gamefaces to the fore, her pet lurks flanked her with their own outdated weaponry, while the two sorcerers, the Old One, and that idiotic human boy took the rear.    
  


Surging forward, Buffy sliced the head off the nearest vamp before making a diving leap at a grotesque oily-haired demon. “Take ‘em out!” she bellowed to the team as the scythe cleaved his head from his body. Behind her, the  _ paft _ of dusting vamps marked the progress of Angel's sword, while Spike mirrored her tactics in targeting the more dangerous-looking adversaries first. In the rush of battle, all their stupid problems vanished as the familiar patterns took over. She knew exactly how he'd respond to her moves, and didn't need to look to be certain he'd be providing cover for Xander to make efficient use of a crossbow at his back. Overhead, Willow was putting her flying abilities into practice, keeping high above the main action while she sent blasts of mystical yellow-gold fire at a hulking twenty-foot-tall green beast and a pair of winged skeletal things. Illyria had a solid grip on one horn of… ( _ what even was that? _ ) a red-coloured, brick shithouse of a demon, kicking it in the teeth. The thing was larger than her whole apartment, rising up from a pool of supernatural-looking flames that obscured everything around its legs. Judging by the pained expression on its face, Illyria had it in hand for the moment.   


Another wave of Giles's blue lightning flashed out on Buffy’s right, blasting several demons back and granting her room for her next swing. She flashed him a quick grin, chuckling inwardly at the giddy excitement on his face. Maybe some things  _ had _ hungover from his stint in second teenager-dom. The next swing of Spike’s battleaxe sent a grey demon's body tumbling into Harth, who squinted his eyes against the jets of blood gushing from its throat as he fell back and ran for cover.  _ Don't bother, futureboy, I believe we've got a date. _   
  


“Security!  _ Security! _ ” screamed some kind of ape hybrid, bolting for the nearest door in panic.

It flung open as he reached it.   


“Security’s taking a break,” Faith snarled in the doorway, waving a demon's head on the end of a long pike in his startled face. “What up, y’all? Thanks for saving me some.”   
  


Shaken from her hold on Tauron, Illyria somersaulted several yards through the air to smash against one of Ocypete's leathery wings. His clawed hands snatched for a grip on her as she fell, and his skull-like green face lowered to speak to her as his wings beat furiously against the added weight. “You further diminish yourself, Illyria. Join us. When we rule, we shall restore your power, and the station you enjoyed of old.”   


The creature insulted her by daring to so much as  _ speak _ in her presence. “I spent my rule crushing pretenders like you, Ocypete," she told him. "And I assure you, I am enjoying that quite enough already.” Her powers may have been limited by her current form, but that could never diminish the respect she was due. He would pay for his insolence.   
  


Seeing Illyria flung clear, Willow levelled her next blast at Tauron's face, twin rivers of golden power flooding from her extended hands. He raised a stumpy sword in defence, managing to deflect the bulk of the attack off the blade, but splashes of gold began to eat into the hand holding the hilt.

“You’d attack my home? My  _ people?"  _ she roared at him, righteous anger surging her power brighter.

“To be fair, I was  _ against _ that," he snarled. "Still going to pulp you."

Shifting her angle, Willow sent the next burst at his crotch.    
  


Crouching slightly to steady his aim, Xander loosed a bolt at a large flying creature making to swoop down on Buffy from behind. His arrowhead flashed golden as it sliced through the thing's chest ( _ thanks, Willow _ ), and with a final lopsided flap, the creature crashed to the ground.   


"Get it?" Spike asked in a shout as he drove his sword down into a grey thing that had tried to duck past him.   


"Wasted it," he confirmed, reloading and twisting his back to face Spike's again. He caught a glimpse of Faith swinging one-handed from the ear of one of the biggest demons still standing, and sent his next shot into a vamp about to make a grab for her legs.   


"Ten o'clock," Spike shouted quickly, ducking low.   


Xander slapped another magically-enhanced bolt into place and raised the crossbow in time to fire into the demon that flew over Spike's back right as it hit the ground.

"That was nine-thirty!" he complained to Spike, scowling at the way the bolt had caught it in the lower leg.

"Sorry!" Buffy shouted from somewhere ahead. "He was slippery!"    
  


With a quick jab of the scythe, Buffy dusted the final vamp within range and spun to face Harth, standing back safely on a staircase against the wall as his minions did the dangerous work. “You messed up, Harth," she called. "So eager to get a piece of the action, you made it possible to change history, just by coming here.”

“That would be true…” Harth said mildly, before his face hardened into a scornful glare, “...if not for the fact that I  _ remember  _ all this, from your perspective.” His eyes flashed yellow in his human face, anger revealing the demon beneath. “Me being here was  _ already _ part of history, you dim blonde needs.”

_ Someone should tell futureboy it's pointless trying to use his weird-ass slang to insult us. _

With a deep boom of impact, something crashed against the outside of the wall behind Harth, sending chunks of cement flying as the entire building shook.

As a second booming thud hit, Harth waved a hand towards the spiderweb of cracks now running outwards across the wall, a malevolent grin spreading across his face. “We’re  _ ready  _ for you.”   


_ Oh crap. _

The third hit did it, and the wall gave way in an explosion of concrete as something burst its way through. Rising up through the resultant cloud of dust came a horribly familiar serpentine face.   


_ What?! _

“Oh my goodness, if you could see your  _ faces! _ I so love a good surprise," he said brightly. “Sorry, I’m being rude. For the newcomers -- hello, blue lady -- I’m Dick Wilkins. Used to be the mayor of Sunnydale.” That chipper civil-servant voice issuing from the toothy maw of a demonically twisted giant snake? Just as disturbing a second time around. “Buffy, Faith, and I go way,  _ way _ back! It’s been a dog’s age, hasn’t it, girls?”

“We… blew you up!” Buffy protested.  _ This is so unfair!   
_

“Oh please, you think that can kill a  _ pure demon made flesh?" _ Wilkins asked. “It wasn’t pleasant, I’ll give you that. After I pulled myself together, I figured hey, if the people of Sunnydale don’t appreciate me, nuts to you!” His dramatic entrance had at least given them a momentary pause in the fight, and everyone was taking the opportunity to close up on Buffy while he held the floor. “Figured I’d go make some money in the private sector. And not to be an I-told-you-so, but the old town really went to hell without me, huh?  _ Ha!  _ Get it?”

“You,” Faith snarled as she reached for the axe on her back. “You made me a  _ murderer.” _   


“Well, Faith, that’s not quite true. I offered advice and guidance. I tried to instil my values in you. That’s all a father figure can do,” Wilkins replied, focusing down his sunken nostrils at her. “Then, I’m proud to say, you made yourself a murderer.”

That did it. With a rage-filled ' _ Rrrraaaghh!' _ of a battle cry, Faith launched herself across the room at him, axe held ready.

The sudden movement triggered everyone else back into action, and the sounds of dusting vamps, slicing flesh, and blunt force filled the air again.   


Before Faith could reach her target, his massive tail whipped out like a ten-ton fleshy baseball bat, smacking her face-first with a solid  _ FWAP  _ of impact that sent her flying clear across the room. She landed in a heap and stayed down, blood flooding up around her mouth and nose. Angel dropped to the floor at her side and hauled her half onto his lap while Buffy crouched and began checking her for injuries.   


“ _ Be prepared!  _ That’s what the boy scouts say,” Wilkins lectured. “And when you have a pal from the future…” With a deafening  _ RRNCH,  _ the lobby ceiling high above them tore apart almost wall-to-wall in a nearly incomprehensible new level of attack. For a split-second Buffy wondered if someone had dropped a bomb on the roof. “...it  _ really  _ helps," Wilkins finished.

Willow and Giles threw glowing hands up, shielding the group as best they could from plummeting cement and acoustic ceiling tiles as everyone closed ranks. High above, massive red fingers gripped either side of the fifty-foot hole they'd torn, while the edges continued to crumble. A large portion of the night sky beyond was blocked from view by the skull-adorned head of the creature, peering down at them with glowing red eyes like a hungry cat that had finally breached the mousehole.   


“The intel we got -- Harth planted it to draw us here,” Angel said.   


“And we walked right into it,” Buffy breathed, looking up over her shoulder at ceiling-demon.  _ Holy shit, that thing is big.   
_

“So let’s walk out. Through anyone who gets in our way,” Willow called.   


Faith was shoving off Angel to clamber to her feet, and in moments the eight of them had formed a tight defensive circle, back to back and weapons out ready. Spike at her left and Willow on her right, Buffy shifted her grip on the scythe, preparing to find out just how deep ceiling-demon's eyeballs went before she'd hit brains.   


“ _ Wait!" _ Xander shouted. "If we can just get a second to breathe, I can get us out of this!”

“Layout seems similar to where I worked,” Angel called. “Should be a records storeroom through the southeast door, no windows, well reinforced.”

"That’s us," she called. “Illyria, Wil, Giles, can you give us some cover?”   


"On it," Willow said, the golden yellow surrounding her raised hands flaring brighter as she lifted off the ground again. Beside her, a blazing blue-white wave of magic surged from Giles.   


"Go!" Buffy shouted, dropping behind them and spinning to face the others. They fled towards the storeroom door, Spike taking heel and motioning for her to get in front of him.

“Hurry. This will gain us seconds at most,” Giles added, teeth gritted and bared with effort.   


“I can extend that,” Illyria announced, stepping between them with her own hands raised. “I am able to  _ slow  _ time, in close proximity.” With an odd wobble of sound, a jelly-ish purple wall appeared before her, rippling like slow-motion water where the demon army pushed against it.   


Buffy dashed past Spike and into the storeroom with him right on her heels. The magic-users held the cover in place as they retreated after them, until Giles was able to slam the door behind Illyria and throw the bolt home.   


A windowless storeroom as promised, the space was dim once the last of the magic faded, and crowded with eight people now packed inside it.

Hands still against the door, Giles flinched as a massive bang shook it in its frame. It wouldn't take long for the oversized demons to breach it.

“You’ve got a plan that isn’t utter bollocks, Harris, now’s the time for it. Hell, even if it  _ is  _ bollocks, I’ll take it,” Spike shouted at Xander.   


“I’m texting as fast as I can! I have fat fingers!” Xander protested, tapping frantically at the cellphone he was hunched over.   


The next hit targeted the wall  _ beside  _ the door, and in a crunching of wood, the mayor's head appeared in a ragged hole.

“Heeeere’s Mayor Wilkins!” he hollered. “Ha Ha! Get it? From that movie. I don’t see many R-rated films, but that was a corker.”   


_ And that was terrible.  _ Taking a defensive stance before the hole as Wilkins reared back to bash his way right in, Buffy shouted to Xander, "How long?"

Eyeing the orange spiral of a half-formed portal, Xander said, “Spinning wheel of death is getting  _ very literal- _ ”

The portal expanded in less than a blink, stretching out into a wide doorway with Dawn visible standing in the living room beyond it. One hand on her hip and a highly unimpressed look on her face, she  hmphed at Xander. “I knew it. Next time just call!”

“It kept dropping," he protested. "Our network sucks. We should switch-”

“All of you get in here right now,” Dawn snapped, stepping to the side.

Everyone bolted for the portal, Illyria slowing time over her shoulder at the rear. The second she was through, Dawn slammed the portal closed in a blink of light.   
  


“No! We had them! This is intolerable!” a rock demon spat as the portal snapped out of existence.   


“Now, don’t blow a gasket, Barbatos. Everything’s going according to plan,” Wilkins said casually. “Isn’t that right, little buddy?”   


“It all went exactly as I remember. Now this is where it starts to get _ really  _ fun,” Harth told them, moving up in front of the snake. In a small voice, he added, “And don’t call me 'little buddy'.”   
  


As everyone stumbled to a halt in the living room, Dawn threw her arms around Xander, squishing him to her for a long shuddery breath of relief.   


"I'm fine," he murmured to her.   


"I know, silly," she whispered back, a wobble sneaking into her voice.  _ Damn baby hormones.  _ Somehow, the stakes felt higher these days.   
  


Across the room, Faith shrugged Angel's hands away angrily as he reached out to assess the blood coating half her face. Illyria watched with detached sourness, and Buffy made a mental note to watch things there. Then again, perhaps some relationship drama of his own would keep him from trying to stir any up in hers.

“We got our asses handed to us," Faith snarled hotly. "Which, duh, if that little weasel knows everything that’s gonna happen…”   


“Hell with that. I refuse to believe we don’t have any bloody choice in what we do,” Spike sneered back.   


Hands braced against the back of the couch, Buffy leaned onto it for a minute, watching the cushions while everyone got their initial heated outbursts over with. Spike retrieved a wet facecloth from the bathroom and tossed it across to Faith, who started mopping up the blood around her tender nose while muttering about  _ that fucking snake. _   


"Mayor," Xander explained to Dawn’s questioning look. "Apparently being blown to bits was only a temporary setback." She nodded, not looking particularly surprised. "Future-vamp, though…" Xander added.

“Problem is, if we don’t know what his history says, odds are whatever we  _ choose _ to do will be what we _ did  _ do,” Willow said in exasperation.   


“I actually understood that. And I have thoughts,” Buffy said, standing up. “In his future, the Slayer sis has a mondo library. Total Giles porn. All these books full of everything the watchers of tomorrow knew.” Ho boy did she have his attention now. “I tried to read some of it while I was there, but there’s so much, and I didn’t know where to start.”

“Ah! But you are neither a trained librarian nor a watcher. Whereas I am  _ both _ ,” Giles said, with quiet Giles-ey pride. It was good to have him back to normal at last.

Angel took Illyria by the shoulders and bent down to appeal to her face. “Illyria, I know the last time we tried time-traveling it went south. But we have to risk it.”

“The risk entails being torn to shreds and scattered upon the temporal winds, to exist forever in untold agony,” Illyria stated in her matter-of-fact way.

Willow looked up brightly. “I think I can help. Since Buffy’s been there, I can get a fix on the energies of that time and guide us to the right era.” Eyebrows drawing together, she continued, “The problem’s  _ accessing _ the time-stream.” Turning to Illyria as the resident time expert, she explained, “Last time, I had to catch a very specific temporal ripple at the exact moment. I don’t know when the next one is--”

“Uh, hello?” Dawn cut in loudly, pointing to herself. “I literally  _ just _ portaled you. Why does everyone here forget I’m  _ the key _ ?”

“Dawnie, you can do that? Make a portal through  _ time _ ?” Buffy asked. It was one thing coming to terms with her sister's refound key-ness and ability to twist open portals across the world and through dimensions, but  _ time travel?   
_

“I mean, probably not on my own," Dawn admitted, dropping her arms to her sides. "But with Illyria and Willow helping me… and knowing where we’re supposed to go…”   


“It does seem plausible," Giles mused. "And frankly, our only viable option.”

“Okay," Buffy said eagerly, placing her hands on Dawn's shoulders. "The future Slayer’s in New York. If we get on a plane now-”

“Unnecessary," Illyria said, her head swivelling to them with that odd mantis-like tilt. "We are not accessing a localised time ripple, but creating our own. Which is not without risk.”   


“ _ Life _ isn’t without risk," Angel told her gently. "Please.” He waited, kicked-puppy eyes working their hardest. Buffy wanted to roll her own.   


“Very well. If you ask it of me,” Illyria sighed, downcast.

Dawn and Willow were already talking over a plan, while Faith grumbled loudly at Giles as he held her face steady to study her injury.   


"Just let me look, for goodness sake," he told her sternly, out of patience.   


With a final mumbled,  _ "It's fine!", _ she relented.

"It is fine," he confirmed a minute later, wiping the last of the blood from under her chin. Faith lifted her eyebrows, smirking with cheeky affection at him.

Buffy tried to catch Spike's eyes, but he was lost in his own thoughts, face pensive as he stared into the distance. There was definitely something going on with him tonight, but whatever it was would have to wait. She knew he'd still be ready to follow her lead as soon as she moved into action.    
  


"Let’s do this," Dawn said, turning back from the rapid planning discussion the three portal builders had been engaged in. Waving everyone to one end of the living room, she took centre stage before them and raised her arms as Willow and Illyria moved up to flank her.   


Everyone picked up their weapons and readied themselves behind her as the orange spiral began to form.

“Th-that should do it,” Willow panted as the time-space portal stretched open.

“It’s… not easy. We need to hurry,” Dawn said. “Xander, this time you stay with the baby. I pumped, there’s milk in the fridge.”

"Be safe," he told them all.

“You’re doing amazing, Dawnie," Buffy said, stepping up to lead them through the yellow glow filling the ring. "Now the only question is how we find Melaka Fray-” A couple of yards beyond the portal, Buffy stopped dead, feeling the others closing up behind her anxiously as the portal's light winked out.

“Summers,” a voice greeted. “Couldn’t wipe our world last time, so jaunted back to try again?”

Before them, Melaka Fray crouched on the hood of a hovering flying convertible, her raygun fixed firmly on them. Standing up on the driver's seat, her sister Erin braced her hips against the edge of the windscreen to counterbalance what looked like some kind of ray-bazooka, also aimed steadily their way.   


“Turn round. Scurry back home,” Melaka said. “Or the  _ Fray sisters’ll _ kick you there.”

“In  _ pieces,  _ need be,” Erin added.

** To Be Continued! **


	3. PART 2: FUTURE SHOCK - #A

Harth, a future vampire who has Slayer ancestral memories meant for his twin sister, Melaka Fray, has come to our era. Forming an alliance of evil including Sunnydale’s Mayor, Wolfram & Hart, and countless demons, his knowledge of future events foretells their victory.

Buffy and friends fight, but barely survive. To counter Harth’s advantage, they go to the future to find out what Harth knows… only to meet Fray and her cop sister, Erin, who aren’t about to let them change their past.

** The 23rd Century. **

**** A rooftop halfway up a highrise, Haddyn  
  


“Terminal warning, Summers. Skip back to your time or get  _ tossed _ back,” Fray shouted.

“Fray, wait-” Buffy called, flipping the scythe from its threateningly ready position to a defensive crossways hold between the convertible's blinding headlights and her own squinting eyes.

“She’s attacking!” Erin snarled, sighting down the bazooka-thing and loosing a massive blast of whatever-those-things-shot straight at the middle of their group.   


Everyone dove for safety, Giles and Angel to one side, Dawn and Spike to the other as he whirled to shove her clear and cover her with his own body. Twenty-five-year-old skilled fighter, portal wizard (and mother of her own child) or no, she'd always be the little bit he'd sworn to protect. Willow shot straight up into the air, while Illyria dodged smoothly sideways with a look of affront.

The  _ ZRAKA BOOM _ of the ray-bazooka going off and the patch of concrete rooftop they'd just been standing on exploding split the air as Buffy leapt up and out off the roof. “I knew it,” she hissed, angling the scythe's blade to deflect the steady blast pouring at her from Fray’s raygun. A swing of her foot sent Erin's gun clunking down off the hood of the car as Buffy came down with the scythe midsection-first at Fray's chest.“ _ Every _ time I come to the future…” Fray dropped her raygun to slap her hands onto the scythe's handle, then they went over the edge of the bonnet together. “...always with the  _ falling. _ ”   


And falling. And falling.   


Ten stories of freefall later (and still miles above the ground-level slums of the city), Fray shot back, “I do this every day.” Kicking off a passing flying car, she rocketed them out sideways towards the concrete wall of the nearest building. “You slack at it.”

Buffy smashed into the wall back-first, momentum and Fray's weight on top of her enough to drive an “ _ HNFF!" _ of expelled breath from her lungs. The decorative masonry she'd collided with disintegrated, falling with them to the rooftop stopping zone below. Buffy’s back took the second impact almost as hard, while on top Fray was pushing to her feet on the instant.

“You broke my scythe, last time,” Fray shouted, wrenching the scythe free with her as she stood. “Only fair I take yours.” With a smooth, practised swing, she swung the blade down full-force at the centre of Buffy’s face.   


Two inches from her forehead, Buffy's hands slapped together, catching the blade between her flattened palms. “If I don’t take  _ my scythe  _ back to  _ my era _ \--” she hissed, shoving the blade back and snatching a one-handed grip on the handle, “--it won’t be there for  _ you _ to get it in the  _ first place _ .” Yanking the head of the scythe down in order to use the stake end like a lever, she swung a foot out and booted Fray in the chin as the girl twisted, knocking her over the side of the roof.  _ Amateurs.   
_

“ _ HNH,"  _ Fray grunted, catching her fall with a finger hold on the roof’s edge."Time travel’s hard.” She swung herself in an arc and up into handspring. “Good reason not to do it.”   


“Listen, fifth element barbie-” Buffy snapped, blocking a kick with the scythe's shaft, “-I don’t  _ want _ to be in your dystopian Y.A. novel of a world!” Falling back, she ducked under another swinging leg. "I only came here ‘cause your annoying fangy  _ brother  _ can to  _ my _ time and he’s  _ already _ messing with it!”

“Harth?” Fray yelped, blocking a punch with her forearm. Stepping back at last, she fell into a defensive stance. “Changes thing. Also splains why a  _ lurk _ spilled where you’d be.” She cocked her head at Buffy. “Wanna hear specs.”

Buffy nodded sharply.  _ Finally.   
_

Fray spun away from her to leap off the rooftop and at the nearest flying car. “First, need to stop my sis blasting your squad," she called back, landing in a crouch on the car's roof and springing off again. “I was def winning this time.”

“Yeah, right,” Buffy shouted, running to follow. Fray was damn good at this, she grudgingly had to admit. A childhood of making grabs -- stealing -- for food, followed by a young adulthood of putting her Slayer-enhanced skills to work as a runner -- professional thief -- had trained her to move across Haddyn's rooftops and mid-air traffic like she was born for it. Which, Buffy supposed, she kind of was. Fray was  _ strong _ , too -- strong on a scale of Slayers. In a clean weight-throwing contest with her, Buffy might have to try out that graceful-defeat thing. But as well as Fray fought, as well as she moved, she did it with no instinctive memory to fall back on. Frustratingly unpredictable, but ultimately lacking. Despite Fray’s advantages of home turf and a lifetime's practice in it, Buffy would always come out on top eventually. She had  _ lifetimes  _ of practice to draw on.

Several chasms of passing cars -- and a boost up from one -- later, Fray’s feet thumped onto the patch of rooftop they'd portaled out onto.

“I hope your sister doesn’t also have the  _ death wish  _ gene,” Buffy snapped, just snagging the edge of the roof with her fingers. She twisted and flipped herself upwards, shouting, “‘Cause you don’t wanna know what kinda nastiness my friends could do to her-”

Eyes sparkling and one hand playing coquettishly with the end of her blonde plait, Erin stood between an excitedly grinning Angel and somewhat bored-looking Spike. “Mel! These gentlemen were just telling me our brother’s in their era, already tampering with the timeline.”  _ Did she just flutter her eyelashes? What a bitch.  _ “Looks like I jumped ‘em a little early. Good news, they don’t seem to mind.”

“No harm done, lass. We should’ve mentioned Harth from the start,” Spike told her smoothly.  _ Too _ smoothly. And now his lips were curving into an admiring- no, a smile, it was just a smile, no adjectives here thank you.

Suppressing the urge to growl, Buffy spun on her heel, putting her back to the three of them as she glanced over the others again. Everyone appeared unharmed, looking around with interest at the traffic passing in mid-air and the highrises that seemed to stretch up into oblivion. Faith was leaning over the edge curiously to study the far-off ground, while Dawn stretched to look over her shoulder. Fray moved to join her sister, and Angel crossed the rooftop to stand near Illyria. Was Illyria pissed? She did look cold, expression alien and merciless as she stared right past him, but for all Buffy knew she could have just been thinking about what to have for lunch. Still, if she did have a row with Angel, perhaps they'd get a look at the rumoured tentacles. And maybe one might slap Spike in the confusion.   


Behind her, Erin whispered to her sister, “So, I know vampires are dead, but can they still-”   


“ _ Blagh, _ how would I know? What kind of deviant wants to sex a lurk?” Fray hissed.

Buffy’s ire surged up again, a sharp retort leaping to her tongue. Over the past couple of years she'd had plenty of practice at lifting her chin high and shooting down anyone who dared question the complete rightness of her and Spike’s relationship, until such comments barely earned an eye roll for their naivety. Of course, she was usually holding his hand proudly in her own when she did so. And since that option was out, she did  _ not _ want to be giving Erin any encouragement. She swallowed down her heated response in a wash of bitterness and schooled her face towards mild exasperation. Throwing her fingers in her ears with excessive dramatism, she snapped,  _ “Let’s focus on the important thing, people!” _   


Giles turned to face her apologetically, before a…  _ flying motorbike?  _ zipped past and caught his attention.   


“Harth already knows what’s going to happen when we fight him. It’s risky, what with all the time paradoxing, but  _ we _ need to know, too,” Buffy announced, turning to point to Fray. She could feel Spike’s eyes on her back from where he now stood at the rear of her group, but didn’t dare meet them. “ _ Without  _ learning other stuff we shouldn’t. Giles can zero in on what’s important.”

“Ladies…  _ take me to your library _ ,” Giles intoned with a finger raised, grinning widely enough to crinkle the edges of his eyes.   


_ Did he just…? _ She had to smile.   
  
  


Calling in a favour from her police colleagues, Erin organised them a lift to ground level; with a mocking grin, Fray threw herself over the side of the roof to beat them down there before it arrived. Dawn crouched at the edge to watch her out of sight, leaping from car to ledge to car with her pink-purple-blue hair flashing out behind her.

"Show-off," Faith said dismissively, watching at Dawn’s side with an intense, calculating look in her eye.

Looking out of the window of the ovalish hoverbus-thing that had collected them, Dawn reconsidered her first impressions of future-Manhattan several times over as they dropped down.   


The level they'd arrived on - Upper Quadrant 6 - had been lit almost to daylight by a thousand competing sources of light in every colour; billboard screens of impossible crystal clarity flashed advertisements from every wall, car landing zones were outlined in red bulbs and brightly floodlit. Windows everywhere glowed warm, or sparkled with fairy lights, or flashed neon rainbows, and a swirl of discordant snatches of music and voices tumbled from both them and the passing cars. From the glimpses she’d caught of people in the vehicles, everyone looked futuristically glamorous.   


The further they dropped, the dimmer the view got. The passing traffic shifted from gleaming luxury vehicles to more utilitarian and battered transport; the electric billboards shrunk before being replaced by flat printed advertisements for junk food and alcohol. Curtains were tucked close on the windows, and lighting became weaker and further apart.

Getting out at ground level, she eyed a group of people standing further down the road, their faces hungry and hunted-looking as they shuffled like wary street dogs before melting away into the shadows. The street was sprinkled with broken glass (some, presumably, from the nearby boarded-up windows), plastic bottles and blowing rubbish. She supposed anything tossed off the layer-upon-layer of rooftops and balconies above must end up here.   


"Versi," Fray announced, leaning against a wall with her hands in her pockets as she waited. "Home sweet home."

"Inequality rather seems to have expanded," Giles mused sadly, craning his neck to look back up.

"Figures," Faith snorted humourlessly, before sharing a troubled look with Dawn.

  
  
  


**** Fray’s Library.  
  


Buffy’s head sunk lower into her hand as she turned pages in a big dusty old book that sat on top of a chest-height tower of big dusty old books. She had a feeling she'd seen this one before at some point in the past; then again, maybe they just all looked the same after a while.

Fray sat on her own book pile, eschewing the research session to play with a creature that resembled a spider monkey. If spider monkeys were tailless, purple, and had four arms. Away near the door, Erin had also managed to escape holding a book -- as had Spike, who seemed to think his job was to keep her entertained. Erin's jacket and belt already hung from a hook on the wall, and from the corner of her eye, Buffy watched her peel off another layer of her police uniform to reveal the delicate creamy-coloured three-quarter shirt she wore beneath. _This isn't a strip club, missy._ _And drop the simpering. _Maybe the book was looking familiar because she kept losing her place while trying to follow the conversation back there.

Faith took a step closer to Buffy’s side, giving her an apologetic and supportive look. “Yo, G, this is like reading baseball stats from when the players had big fluffy mustaches,” she said loudly. “Dense, boring, and  _ old news _ .” Snapping her book shut, she dropped it on top of Buffy’s, effectively jolting the mood.

“Faith’s right. Most of these books date from before our time,” Willow replied, sliding a volume back into place on a wall of bookshelves.

“It appears the watcher’s council fell on hard times around our era… hardly surprising, given that the First Evil  _ blew them up _ ,” Giles retorted from his position in the room's sole armchair. Adjusting his glasses, he continued, “Still, there  _ are _ later works… more like the rantings of madmen than scholars, but one can attempt to separate fact from paranoia.” He peered closer at the volume he held. “I’ve found references to an immortal madwoman…”

“Yeah, that’d be  _ me _ ,” Willow replied softly, turning her eyes away. In a rush, she told them, “I guess I live a really long time, go semi-dark and all nuts, and then bring Buffy here to kill me.”   


And there was the least-fun part of Buffy’s prior little jaunt to the 23rd century. If she closed her eyes, she could see it. The wooden end of the scythe had slammed through Willow's chest as easily as any vampire's, tearing the brocade of her dress, the ivory of her skin, crunching through breastbone to sink into her heart.   


“And I didn’t have the manners to say why. Apparently the one rule I clung to was ‘no spoilers’,” Willow finished.   


_ 'You see what I've seen, you come and go as I have… you realise the most important thing about death isn't who dies… it's who kills them.'  _ It was all the explanation she had given.   


In the silence that followed, Willow hugged her arms close against herself, facing the floor as she struggled not to cry. Buffy crossed the room to stand at her side and place a hand on her shoulder in a gentle half-hug, the same question still echoing through her mind;  _ why? _

“Heavy,” Faith commented when the silence continued.   


“Yes. But that does present another avenue of investigation,” Giles said, removing his glasses and rubbing his chin as his role in the current crisis kicked back into gear. “Melaka, are there  _ other _ beings who’ve survived since our era? Immortals?”

Disentangling her hair from the monkey again, Fray lowered him from her shoulders to the ground. “Didn’t scan there were  _ any, _ ‘til vein-lady popped up. But I know who can tell us," she said, darting a shifty glance at Buffy.   


_ Who- oh.  _ She could feel her eyebrows digging down into a scowl of disgust. “ _ Gunther?  _ That scaly pervert. Good thing I’m wearing pants this time.” The way Faith’s attention leapt towards her had Buffy clapping a hand to her mouth as she realised how that had sounded. “That came out wrong. See, he’s a fish-dude, you walk on his glass tank, and if you’re wearing a dress-”

Angel cut her off, announcing firmly, “Buffy, Spike, Willow, Illyria, and I will go with Fray. Anything goes south, the six of us should be able to handle it.” Looking to Faith, Giles, Dawn, and Erin, he continued, "The rest of you find out what you can here. Let's move, people."

_ And just who the hell put you in charge? Because it certainly wasn't me.  _ She felt like slapping the plan down on principle; exchanging him for Faith in her group, perhaps.  _ This  _ was why she hated working with Angel. And it would be pointless to call him out on it; he'd never understand what the problem was. Determining to let this one pass in the interests of group harmony, she stifled her irritation into clenched fingers and gritted teeth.

Oblivious, he was already moving to the door. 

  
  


Twirling the end of her hair around a finger, Erin watched Angel stride across the room, then nudged her sister's shoulder with her own and gave her a knowing smirk.

“Okay. I kinda scan it,” Fray admitted behind her hand. “You’re still deviants.”

  
  


**** Soon…  
  


Hands in his coat pockets, Spike resisted the urge to stamp on the glass. Mostly due to having stomped his way into the room when they entered and the thick plexiglass floor they stood on refusing to so much as thud dully. Below the glass, the water-filled tank Gunther occupied mirrored the dimensions of the large room on its roof, running as deep down as the high ceiling rose above their heads. The recessed lighting of the tank filtered up from foot-level to cast them in eerie shades of pale blue, rippling and shifting on their clothing. The little mer-sleaze hung in place before Fray’s feet, round yellow orbs of eyes scanning over them all. With a head and torso that could only vaguely be described as humanoid and the lower half of a ribbon eel, Fray had labelled him a 'radie' -- the product of the damaged sun genetically mutating regular humans -- but Spike was calling demon. The dolphin-like purple skin on Gunther’s top half, webbed fingers, and gill slits were too perfectly adapted for his aquatic environment to have developed by chance. Although… human babies had gill slits at one stage in utero, didn't they? And tails. He was sure he'd read that once, unless it'd been in a demonological pregnancy guide. Then again, the lurks were considered just another unlucky mutation by the general populace; other demons in their midst passed with barely a flicker of interest. Either way, Rupes was going to produce his notebook expectantly when they rejoined the others.   


“Melaaahhhka… every time, more visitors,” Gunther said. “Early twenty-first century clothes… reenactors? Perhaps a costumed fetish ball? You’re welcome to hold it here.” He looked them over again. “Or more  _ time travellers? _ Hmm, pristine condition… if you’re selling, they’ll fetch a good price.”

“Not selling, but you score. They’re from ago. Looking for anyone might’ve been around since then,” Fray said, hands on her hips authoritatively.   


“Well, there  _ was _ the witch, but the last time you brought the tawny one, she killed her,” Gunther said snidely. Buffy uncrossed her arms and bent over slightly, no doubt giving him the death-glare; he turned back to Fray. “Let me think… immortality, immortality… sure you don’t want  _ immorality? _ That, no shortage of.” Fray tapped her foot impatiently, and the seaweed-ey tentacles coming off Gunther's face like whiskers drooped. “Wait. I can’t testify as to exact dates, but I have a client, hasn’t aged since I was a tad, likes shiny old things. Called  _ the Queen, _ ” he told them. “But I value customer privacy. Let me make a call. See if she  _ wants _ to see you.” With a swirl of his tail, he turned and dove down to a passageway set into one wall of the tank.

“ _ Wait! _ Don’t  _ warn _ her… slag it,” Fray sighed as he vanished from sight.

“It resembles a demon, but lacks a mystic aura,” Illyria commented, staring after Gunther with a puzzled expression.  


_ Huh. _ Maybe he really was the result of muddled human evolution.   


“Gunther’s a mutant. Radiation… causes a lot of variety, apparently. Thought the creeper gene seems to have survived intact,” Buffy told her, still glaring at the floor. “He’s Fray’s fence. Clued in to the dark corners of this society, upscale and down. If what we’re looking for exists, he knows where.”

Angel looked at Illyria beside him. “You’re immortal. Maybe this “Queen” is you."

“Were I present on this plane, I would sense it. I am not. Clearly the banishing of magical things during The Reckoning encompassed me,” she stated flatly.

“Good to see you back, blue thunder. I’d missed your sunny outlook,” Spike said with a grin. Trust Lyri to keep the facts clean and blunt. Turning to speak quietly behind the back of his hand, he asked Angel, “Noticed  _ we _ don’t seem to be around either, have you?”

“I never expected to last this long,” Angel said sombrely, craggy-browed broodface deeply in place.

Spike shrugged a shoulder. “Nor I. Still a mite curious to find out how I go. You?”

“No.” Turning his back on them all, Angel slumped away to the shadowy rear of the room. “Whatever it is, I’ve got it coming.”   


_ Drama queen. _ He raised his eyebrows at Illyria in query; she stared after Angel with a slight frown of concern.  _ Wanker better be treating her right. _

The light from the tank rippled as Gunther returned. “Splendid news! The Queen will see you. Seems she does go back to your time,” he announced. “In fact…” he added, grinning mirthfully, “...she says she  _ knows  _ you.”

_ Balls. Please don’t be Dru. _

Everyone was looking firmly down at the tank with expressions of varying concern. He supposed he wasn't the only one with an immortal skeleton best left in the cupboard. 


	4. PART 2: FUTURE SHOCK - #B

The door to the uppertown apartment swung open-   


He should have been wishing it  _ was _ Dru.

“ _ EEEEEEE!” _ Harmony squealed, throwing her arms out in excitement. “Oh. My.  _ God! _ It’s been  _ forever! _ ” Her movie-queen makeupped face was unchanged by the centuries; one side of her hair sported a pink plastic unicorn clip. She wore a skimpy chemise of black silk under a short-sleeved robe that flowed like liquid gold, the oversized stiff collar of the thing rising up behind her head to reflect light onto a smattering of tiny silver stars in her hair.

“Harmony,” Angel groaned.

“Of course,” Buffy gritted out.

“Oceans rise, empires fall, but narcissists are eternal,” Spike sighed, looking heavenward with a silent complaint that was one part  _ you assholes  _ and two parts  _ just, why? _

“I’ve missed you guys, ever since your horrible demise!” Harmony exclaimed. Before they could dodge, she'd flung an arm around his own neck and Angel's to squash them into an awkward four-person hug with Buffy in the middle. If she noticed their stiff resistance, it didn't have any effect. “That was  _ so sad _ . I cried for, like,  _ hours. _ ” Twisting her head to sneer over at Willow, she added, “Well,  _ you _ stuck around. Weren’t much fun.”   


“Imagine that.” Willow glared back, crossing her arms. “Any chance we could focus more on what happened, and less on how it inconvenienced  _ you?” _   


Harmony hmphed at her, then finally released himself, Buffy, and Forehead. “All business, huh? Okay, come in. You want anything, tell the servants,” Harmony tossed back as she led them inside. “The future’s so  _ great _ . You need minions, you just get poor people! They’re so desperate they’ll even let you suck most of their blood," she told them brightly. “That’s how I flew under the radar all these years. Just another ultra-rich, ultra-freaky and ultra-gorgeous superstar.”

The entranceway opened into a vast and grand cathedral-like hall, empty save for… yes, that was a bleeding  _ throne _ at the end. Backed by a giant unicorn's head motif, larger-than-life pomeranians cast from gold for the arms, scattered with cushions upholstered to match the stars in her hair. A pair of anaemic-looking women stood waiting to serve their 'queen' as she approached, feet sinking soundlessly into a thick red carpet emblazoned with a giant H. Oh, and there was a forty-foot high mural on the curtained wall behind the throne. Depicting Harmony in bed. Naked. Pretty good likeness, too.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but can we get back to our horrible demise?” Buffy asked, throwing her hands up aggravation.   


Harmony moved a cushion on the throne, moved it back, tweaked the corner of it, then finally sat down, one hand falling on the armrest to stroke it like a living dog. “Well, I wasn’t there. But I heard about it from some vampires who were,” she said, settling back and crossing her legs. “And it totally stuck with me, ‘cause it totally validates my life choice to focus on  _ myself.” _ Pointing an accusing finger at Buffy and Willow, standing together at the head of the group, she told them, “So, it was all your fault.”   


“Me?” they asked together, eyes widening.   


“Both of you. All your uniting Slayers and teaching Wiccans and inspiring ordinary people into thinking they were  _ special _ ," she said, waggling her finger between them both. “The demons and a bunch of vampires got together… backed by folks who thought you were overstepping with all your 'change the world' crap.” She dropped the finger-pointing to rub at her chin. “‘Cause they were worried you might  _ actually  _ make a change. And their cushy ride would be over. So they decided to stop you.” She fell silent for a few seconds, then bounced forward in her seat excitedly. “So I guess you succeeded in uniting  _ them, _ anyway. Yay!” she squealed, clapping her hands.   


Everyone stared back, stony-faced. With the possible exception of Angel, but there was no way Spike was turning his head to check.   
  


These guys were like, no fun at all. They hadn't even complimented her painting. But she'd always known they had atrocious taste. With a long-suffering sigh, she began repeating what she'd learnt when she finally relented to Clem's request to fly back to California and find out what had happened. “So there was, like, a mondo fight. At that new age center Willow had where she helped women find their voice and blah blah."   


When they got there, the place had looked like a bomb had hit it, torn earth and rubble and everything rank with bits of demon and burning bone. No one had been around. Clem had dragged her to three different demon bars before he found someone who had seen the fight.

“It. Was.  _ Horrible! _ Blood and guts and dead everybody all over." Even the vamp who told the story had been disturbed by the way so many Slayers went down in minutes; like them, he was totally outclassed, and had dropped back to watch from the rear. “Then it got  _ way _ worse for your side. Something happened that took away all the Slayers’ powers." It had happened in an instant, and they panicked en masse. “Including their  _ memories _ of being Slayers."

Harmony glanced at Buffy, and was glad to see she had her rapt attention now. “But not yours, Buffy. I don’t know why. You were still there, fighting, while the ex-Slayers ran away." She'd had that scythe-thing, battling on fiercely with blood running down her face and rips in her outfit. Harmony flapped a hand at Faith. “No one ever mentioned Faith again, so I figure she was one of the lost generation. Probably went back to  _ Boston  _ and  _ pahked cahs _ ." They should have gone to find out, really. It could have been great fun. “The rest of you guys were totally outnumbered. Anybody could see you were toast.

“So Buffy had little sis open a portal to a hell dimension." The vamp they'd met had backpedalled swiftly at that, and it had probably saved him. “Then Willow made a big, magic hurricane kinda thingy that blew all the bad guys through the portal.

“But they weren’t gonna stay there just to be polite." They'd been throwing themselves at the portal out as fast as Willow could push them back, shaking the magic of the whole thing as Dawn tried frantically to close it. “Buffy had to go too, to keep ‘em from coming back through… or finding a way to do it later."

She paused and leant forward, drawing out the moment. “That’s right, Buffs. You went to hell. And  _ never came back. _ " Buffy’s cheeks paled. She grinned, pleased with the effect she was commanding. “You stayed there forever, fighting heinous monsters and demons for the rest of your life." She cocked her head. “Which, let’s face it, probably wasn’t  _ that _ long."

Everyone was shocked silent. “Some folks said Angel and Spike went with you. Which is kinda sweet. I always said the three of you should get real and just embrace polyamory." She grinned again. “Not that you would’ve had much time for amory in hell." They were all still looking horrified. Bunch of sad sacks.

“But others say they didn’t get through in time. Poor Buffy was all alone." She threw her a pout. “In that case, the boys must’ve not been able to handle the guilt." Clem had been brought down by it, going kinda mopey and boring; they'd fought bitterly about her prior insistence on keeping clear of Buffy and all her drama. “‘Cause no one ever heard from captain forehead or blondie bear again." There were rumours; picking suicidal fights, losing bets with higher powers. She imagined they'd probably shared a couple of bottles of whisky and watched the sun rise; it was a romantic and suitably idiotic ending, since they'd never come looking for  _ her. _ “Dawn had to stay behind to close the gate. And Xander stayed with her, ‘cause, y’know,  _ whipped. _ " Dawn was  _ way  _ too good for stupid  _ Harris.  _ “Willow and Giles, too. They had to cast all the spells to seal the portal forever and make sure it never opened again." Maybe they didn’t want Buffy coming back all hell-twisted. But she'd better not say so. Moody Buffy could be dangerous. “Everybody was  _ super _ sad."

“Xander and Dawn had each other, at least. And some rugrats, I think. They were bummed, but they moved on," Clem had written to them over the years, but she hadn't really paid attention. “Never did anything interesting again, far as I know." Dawn hadn’t even passed on her powers, unless they'd kept it quiet. “I meant to check on ‘em more, but you know how mortals are… you look away for a second and  _ BAM!  _ They’re dead of old age." She gave them an apologetic frown. “Giles was ancient already. Not sure how much longer he hung on, but I hear he spent what time he had making sure that portal was  _ never _ gonna open again." She'd thought it best to avoid him.   


“But  _ somebody  _ had to stick around and keep watch, in case the monsters ever came back." She looked at Willow. “Guess which lesbian witch that was?" Willow's cheeks were paler than Buffy’s had gone now. “I didn’t like to be around people with negative energy, so I couldn’t hang with you much -- sorry, girlfriend. Anyway, you kinda withdrew from the world."  _ And everyone was kinda spooked by you.  _ “I mean, imagine the guilt… you sent your best friend to hell! A fate so much worse than death… that probably ended in death anyway! Damn, I’d be antisocial, too."   


“But you had to stand guard. And you did. Using your magic to stay young. Like I always say, better to look good than feel good." She flashed them the award-winning smile that went with the catchphrase, but they didn't seem to care. Losers. “I bet it got even  _ more _ depressing when everyone you knew started dying around you, huh?" she asked Willow. “So, all that’s gonna mess with anyone’s head, am I right? And it did. Next time we crossed paths, you’d gotten kinda… weird." Right here in Haddyn, a few decades back. “And, like,  _ way _ more goth. Or emo. Or megadark. Or whatever they call it now." There'd been black  _ veins  _ all over her face,  _ so _ gross. “Nothing personal, but I steered clear. Not my circus, not my monkeys, okay?" Willow didn't disagree, so she continued, “Finally a new slayer came along. You weren’t needed any more. So you yanked your bestie here from the past to kill you." And ganked a heap of lurks in the setup. It was lucky she'd not got involved. “Which, I mean, as ugly as things had gotten, is kind of a happy ending, so…" She sat back, raising her palms. “The end, yay?"

  
  


For six years, the question had floated up in her brain in the middle of the night with reliable frequency.  _ What will I one day do to Willow? What could be so awful she'd plan a way to make the punishment start years beforehand?  _ When Buffy had shared the bare details of her little trip, Wil had thrown around weak-sounding theories to do with un-paradoxes, fixing points in time, guaranteeing futures by participating in them; she could hardly die in the now and still be alive in two centuries for an event that had already happened from Buffy’s point of view. But Buffy had known. She'd seen the look on future-Willow's face. That Willow had cornered Buffy into murder for entirely personal reasons.  _ Why? _   


Buffy lifted a hand to her mouth, suddenly queasy. “ _ That’s _ why you wanted me to kill you? Wil, you didn’t have to-”

“I sent you to hell. I kinda did,” Willow mumbled sadly.   


_ And I've been paying for it for six years!  _ Buffy wanted to slap her. Scream at her. Throw her through the nearest window and down the hundred-plus levels to the ground. She took a step back, turning away and taking steadying breaths as the flipside sunk in;  _ that was Willow’s reward for saving the world. For choosing to stand at my side all these years.  _

  
  


“I am not on this plane, in this era. I take it I accompanied the hellbound?” Illyria asked, looming  _ way  _ too close to Harmony's face.

She lifted her hands in front of her chest placatingly. “Well, I never heard about you again so… probably?” she guessed with a smile. Illyria backed off, so it must have been the right answer.   


“Harth. My brother. Lurk from now-time,” Fray asked as soon as Illyria stepped back. “Tell me about  _ him. _ ”

“Right, the future-vamp. No one seemed to know what happened to him. Guess he coulda gone to hell with the others,” Harmony said. “Or… he had some plan to use the Reckoning to get  _ all-powerful, _ come back here, and take over. So… maybe that’s what he did? Hmm…” A thought struck her. “That means he could be back  _ any minute _ .” Perking up, she leaned in to ask Fray, “So, does your brother like blondes?” Fray looked confused, but Harmony smiled confidently. “Who am I kidding, right?  _ Everybody  _ likes blondes.” Things were looking up; if a shift in power was about to go down, she now knew exactly who to focus on.

  
  


“I… guess we  _ do  _ save the world. For a while, anyway,” Buffy said slowly, turning back to the team. All up, it wasn't the worst worst-case to anticipate.   


“Not  _ my  _ world. Harth comes back levelled up,  _ nothing _ can stop him,” Fray said hotly, tossing her arms up.

Willow spoke soothingly, logic smothering her inner turmoil as she searched for an answer that would let her avoid the future she'd just heard. “So we stay here until he comes back and fight him. We’re guaranteed to win, since we have to go back to participate in The Reckoning.”

“That’s bloody daft. How do we know that we won’t change history by staying here?” Spike snapped. “Get killed, can’t go back to the past, the baddies win then  _ and  _ now?”

_ Thank you. _ Her emotions felt like they were running too high for her to be the one pointing out the whopping hole in Willow's reactionary idea. She waited to see if anyone else needed to get something out before she announced the plan.

“I shall stay. I shall fight the Harth creature,” Illyria said. “My role in The Reckoning is clearly an unremarkable one, as history does not record it.”

“No. To hell with that. To hell with  _ all _ of this,” Angel's voice boomed out. “We go back. We stop Harth and the mayor and all of them. We save our era, this era,  _ and _ keep everyone out of hell.” Focusing on Buffy, he added, “I’ve been there. Trust me, you don’t want to go.”

_ Groan. Why did I give him a pass earlier?  _ Forcing on a smile that probably fell between condescending and pitying, she told him, “That’s sweet… but even if it ends badly for us, the way things went historically worked out for the best for everyone else.” If they broke history now, what was to stop Harth from leaping back to last week and attacking them when they'd been unprepared? Or dropping back further, to any of the previous apocalypses they'd barely scraped through. Let him stick to his plan.  _ We follow the path we know until we find a better one.  _ “We can’t take the chance of making it worse. Illyria’s right… she stays here, we go back. That’s final.”

“ _ Nothing’s  _ final,” Angel bellowed. “Not fate, not prophecies, not what’s in history books.” He stalked off to stand stage-centre on the giant H and pontificate at them all. “I’ve spent  _ two hundred years  _ chasing prophecies and accepting destiny. Believing nothing we do really matters.”

_ Oh here we go... _

“But if nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do.”   


_ Yep. Called it. _

“I’m going to find a way to save the world. Then  _ and  _ now. And I’m also going to find a way to save the people I love." He drew himself up for his final impassioned statement, “If I have to do it alone, I will.”

_ Because obviously the rest of us were just going to roll over and die. _ “Angel, that… I…” She pressed her lips together, smothering a sudden urge to laugh inanely; it'd hurt his feelings.   


“My warrior;” Illyria said gravely, moving to stand before him. “I stand with you. At your side, I defy time, fate, and any gods there be.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, hardening her face. “Let them come!  _ And let them fall! _ ”

Buffy rolled her eyes as far as they went, turning towards Spike in the same motion;  _ look, they're finally rolling right out of my head!  _ He was studying the edge of the carpet in glum resignation, and didn't look up.

“I think that’s a 'so say we all',” Willow said, breaking the moment. “One glitch: Fray, you know Harth better than anyone. We need you to come back with us. Help us fight him.” She paused. “But if we  _ do _ manage to change the future… we’ve got the same problem as before. Your world, as you know it, might not be here for you to come back to.”

Fray hugged her arms across her chest, turning her head away. “Place is a toilet. Harth running it… not ‘bout to make it any better," she murmured, then sighed out a breath. When she turned to Buffy again, her face was resolved. “Let me bring Erin, Gates, maybe Gunther with me… I’m good," she said firmly.   


“That’s a deal. Thank you,” Buffy said, offering a hand. Fray clasped it in her own firmly, and Buffy gave her a nod.

  
  


“And all of a sudden, I don’t miss you anymore! God, I forgot about all the  _ whining! _ ” Harmony shouted, jabbing a finger towards the door. Stupid snivelling goody-two-shoes coming along and dredging up the past; it was  _ over  _ and  _ done with  _ and her fling with Clem was just a- She had to get them out of here. “Time to go now. I’ve got a beautification treatment. You don’t stay looking  _ this _ awesome for centuries without putting in the time." Forwards and upwards, that was how you played the game. “Oh, and if you see Harth, just in case things don’t work out for you guys… tell him to call me, mmkay?” she told Spike, who was looking at her curiously.   


She shoved them out the front door, blew them a fake kiss with a loud “ _ Mwah!” _ , then slammed it behind them.

He'd seemed like a permanent fixture, Clem had, as immortal as herself. From just another assistant, to personal assistant, to career manager, to, well,  _ boyfriend _ , he'd fetched her coffee and organised her schedule and always been there holding exactly what she needed when she needed it. He'd loved her for  _ her,  _ never asking for anything in return, and when she'd finally come to believe  _ her _ was something worth loving like that, she'd realised she wanted to share it with him (the sleazeball vamp she dropped a date with that week tried to run her down for her choice, but screw that, she was  _ Harmony _ fucking Kendall and she  _ got _ what she wanted, thank you very much).

And then one day… her coffee wasn't there. Clem was sick. Then he was gone. And things hadn't ever quite felt the same since.  _ Stupid time-travellers.  _

  
  


**** Fray’s Library   
  


Many of the books were familiar; the more common demonology guides, Torp's Spellbooks, an old -- old from a 21st-century viewpoint -- copy of the Slayer's Handbook. And the Watchers Diaries. 18th, 19th, 20th century, council-issued printings that matched the ones in his own library. Finally he found an unfamiliar volume, and opened it to read, _Rupert Giles, Buffy Summers, 2001. _He flipped pages, confirming its accuracy, then checked the flyleaf again for any information; this journal had certainly not existed in print in 2011. There was no publication information, nothing but the title and his own dry words, converted to 12pt Times New Roman. Holding onto it, scoured the shelf he'd found it in for any similar covers, then stepped back to look over the whole wall again. Nothing. It was eerie, peculiar, and rather disturbing. Where was the history of the last two centuries? If Fray’s knowledge was correct, there had been no Slayer, of course, but that was no excuse to allow themselves to be so slack. _Themselves._ _Ha. _His loose collection of occasional research associates was not what he thought of when he imagined the careful recording of knowledge for future generations; it was still the once-venerated halls of the former council seat in London that sprung to mind. But they were long gone.   


He'd had such plans, at first. An entirely new type of council to accompany the hundreds of new Slayers, a complete re-envisioning of what it meant to be a watcher. Then he'd… well, being dead was a fair excuse for neglecting your duty, wasn't it? And coming back, irrevocably changed, had been harder than his guilt-stricken heart would ever allow him to admit. Admission or no, Buffy had understood as only she possibly could; somehow continued to understand and extend an empathetic smile as he readjusted once more to the latest change. With a solid and deeply loving relationship with the  _ thirty-year-old _ Slayer he'd lost so many times, he was more than content to consider his duties fulfilled. But somewhere along the way, he'd forgotten his responsibilities to those of the future. And, dang it, he simply felt too damn old these days to recover the grand ideals of years past. 

  
  


**** Gunther’s Home.  
  


Fray dropped to one knee on the glass and pressed her open palm against Gunther’s webbed one below.   


“No, Melaka. Kind of you to invite me, but I’ll stay,” Gunther said quietly. “Spent all my life in a world didn’t want me, twisting and shaping it to work for me. Too old to start over now.”

“We have to do this, Gunther. I know Harth. My brother was genius. Creative. Good.”  _ Jesu, he was such a sweet boy.  _ “The lurk wearing his skin is all that, minus the good,” she said. “Whatever he’s got minded for this world, you don’t wanna see it.”  _ Please.   
_

“I believe you. And I wish you luck,” Gunther said, dropping his hand from hers and turning to dive down to the door. “But this is my world. I’ll live or die with it.”

“Gunther…” Fray called, slapping the glass. He paused at the door, turning to look over his shoulder at her. “...Some point, I got to be more than just a runner for you, yeah?”

His shoulders drooped, and before he turned away again she caught a glimpse of tears swirling out from his eyes, salty white against the surrounding blue of his tank. “No, Melaka,” he called back as he disappeared from view. “You were never just a runner.”

  
  


**** Fray’s Library  
  


The others were waiting when she got back from Gunth's, several of them holding books to take back with them. On the floor, Buff's sister -  _ Dawn? Yeah, Dawn _ \- was playing with Gates, tickling his armpits while he perched on her bent-up knees. He was giggling like a loon.

“Ah, Fray. Buffy’s filled us in on the plan, and we’re all in agreement,” Giles said, looking up at her. “I finally unearthed an account of The Reckoning… clearly third or fourth hand, and that from someone who fled before the battle ended, but there’s enough…” he waved the book he held, “...for us to make a  _ semblance _ of a plan, at any rate.”

She nodded. "'Kay."

At her side, Erin lifted a brow and whispered, "All good?"   


"Yeah. Said to party on without him."

Erin gave her a sympathetic little smile, despite having always hated Gunther and every aspect of Fray working grabs for him.

“You guys sure you’re okay with this? Erin?” Buffy asked, coming over to stand with them.

“Scared. But Harth’s family, and the person he was would want us to stop the monster he is,” Erin told her.

“I’m in. All I got left is Erin…" Fray said, cocking a thumb at her, “...and Gates.”   


Dawn had got to her feet, and the demon was trying to find a steady balance on her shoulders for his not-inconsiderable weight. As soon as Fray got within range, he gripped a handful of her hair and climbed over to his familiar perch behind her head.   


“He’s  _ so cute! _ What is he?” Dawn asked, grinning at him.

“He’s Gates,” Fray said with a shrug. "He led me to this place. Knew what I was. Named him after the last great watcher, from one of the diaries." Giles looked up. "Killed in the battle of Starbucks," she told him. "Can't scan where that was." He looked puzzled.   


“Word. We all got the haps, let’s do the do,” Faith said.   


“Finally, one of you speaks proper ‘Merican,” Fray said with a grin. That Faith chick was alright; she looked like she actually knew how to have fun.

“Dawn, Illyria… you guys ready?” Willow asked as Dawn shrugged on her jacket. “Let’s go home.”

  
  


**** The Present.  
  


“And they should be getting back right about… now,” Harth said, checking the time on his phone. “We don’t want to give them too much time to prepare.”  _ Not like I've had.   
_

“That’s  _ so wacky. _ You actually remember going to the future, meeting your sister, planning the fight…” Wilkins said, twisting his head to speak back to where Harth was perched on his neck. Controlling the crowd was a damn sight easier when they could  _ see _ you above them.

“I remember it as her. Buffy. I have all the Slayers’ memories, it’s just a matter of focusing… I’m not sure how people with souls manage it without going crazy," he mused.   


“It’s a brain-teaser, all right. But hey, you don’t get to be Mayor  _ three times  _ over the better part of a hundred years without being results-oriented,” Wilkins said cheerily. The idiot was irrepressibly upbeat.   


He remembered the upcoming battle, of course; had poured over it in excruciating detail from Buffy’s point of view, from Faith’s, from any number of other Slayer's. The way his superior army had slaughtered their way through the smaller one until Buffy had realised the truth: their only chance lay in playing out history, by repeating Willow's spell to drain  _ all _ of the Slayers of their power and channel it into Buffy. And when he'd  _ still  _ been prepared to counteract their every move, the warlock had gone a step further, severing the  _ memories  _ of the Slayers from their mystical connection as the witch and the key opened a portal and prepared to force his army through. From that moment on, he remembered nothing. But he only had to check his own time's history books to confirm that they'd lost.   


_ This _ time, he was ready. His fingers clenched on the staff in his left hand, feeling the power thrumming within it. This time, the power would be his.

Harth shoved his phone in his pocket and wedged the staff on his lap to grab a hold on the snake's neck with both hands as they began moving. Slithering along on one flank of the army, they paused outside the doors of Wolfram & Hart to look over the newcomers who had collected outside. It was quite a formidable militia, if he did say so himself.   


“So whaddaya say, young fella?” Wilkins said. “Let’s get some results.” They surged forward to lead the forty-mile march to San Francisco. “Everybody tinkle before we go?”

  
  
  



	5. PART 3: THE RECKONING - #A

**** Women's Empowerment Center   
  


While Willow gathered her girls together to strengthen the mystical doorbell and wards around the Center, Buffy called in slayer teams from across the country.  _ Drop everything, pick up weapons, get here.   
_

And don't forget to kiss your loved ones goodbye.   


All team leaders notified, she handed the phone to Giles and excused herself on the pretence of finding a drink. This hadn't got any easier over the years. Indeed, every time that she was left standing while the fresh-faced young girls she'd helped train were slaughtered, it felt less and less fair. Some of them treated her like a messiah, a holy relic to lay down their lives before in the comfort that she would go on eternally.  _ Bullshit, _ she wanted to tell them.  _ I'm just another Slayer, and one battle or another, it'll be my turn. _ That was how Slayers were  _ supposed _ to go. It was unnatural to treat her any differently. But life always seemed to. After fifteen years with an expiry date hovering just in front of her it was suddenly looking blurry, and she didn't know what to do with this glimpse of a life where she gradually grew older and nothing killed her and she had to face her unanticipated future. She was already two whole years older than Spike physically, and although she still looked a decade younger, she had nightmares of waking up to find it had all caught up with her unnoticed to leave her grey-haired and bedridden. And yeah, not dying prematurely was a fair trade-off for ageing, but she'd long ago made her peace with the dying option, and the unexpected one of living was… frightening. And all of these girls deserved it just as much.   


In the kitchen, Faith had her feet on the table and her chair tilted back on two legs while she talked to Fray, who sat swinging her feet off the bench as if competing for 'most delinquent seat'. Buffy dug through the fridge until she found a bottle of some kind of organic herbal cola thing, and offered one to Fray.   


"Thanks," she said, studying the label curiously.   


Buffy blinked, suddenly realising that  _ everything  _ must be strange and new - or rather, old - for the 23rd-century pair. They hadn't commented during the drive over from Xander's (in a non-flying car), professional cool at maximum, and it was easy to forget how very far from home they were. "Can I get you and Erin anything else? Or, um, Gates?" she asked, nodding at the purple monkey-demon-thing where he perched on top of the pantry. "Food? Uh, did Willow find you a room?"

"Yep. Actually, wondered if it's okay to look around outside? Just, you know, onsite." She looked like she was trying to smother embarrassment for wanting to.

"Course. Go for it." Buffy said. "The meditation gardens around back go on for a few acres before the fence. Just keep an ear out in case of trouble."   


"'Kay." Fray nodded and jumped off the bench, and Buffy noticed the view out of the window she'd been sitting by, out over the rear of the grounds in the early morning light.   


_ Oh.  _ There were no gardens in Versi. No sunshine, no bumblebees, no clear open skies.   


"Does he eat fruit?" she asked Fray as the monkey thunked down onto her shoulders.  _ Please don’t say he eats brains or toes or something. _ "'Cause there's blueberry bushes down there, and a strawberry patch… and I think a mandarin tree."

"Guess we'll find out," Fray said with a shrug.

  
  


"You good?" Faith asked once they were alone. "Need me to go smack him one for the smooth act with cop-bitch?"

She snorted. "Nah. I mean, yeah, green-eyed little monster me might be tempted, but he didn't mean anything by it. We're fine."

"So what was on your face when you walked in then?"   


"It's nothing. I'm just having a shitty-mood day." Faith gave her a sceptical look. She sighed. Somewhere in the living together and coffee shop dates and holding hands in public, they'd slipped into beginning to really understand each other in a way that would have once seemed impossible. Faith had this way of listening and moving on that made it easy to unload to her. "Just finished sending out the calls for reinforcements," she told her.   


"Ah." Faith considered her drink for a moment. "Sucks."

_ There it was.  _ Buffy smiled. "Yeah. It does."   


They sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments, then Faith said, "This fight coming up… been thinking about what could go wrong."

Buffy gave her a bemused look. "Not like you?"

"Yeah, well, I've gotta look at these things differently now, don't I? Anyway, I was just talking to Xander, and he suggested we get married beforehand."

…  _ what? _

"In case we don’t both make it home safe home for Wednesday. Legal documentation, yadda yadda."

"Not quite how I pictured my first genuine proposal going," Buffy said dryly, feeling strangely flustered. "Friends plotting an arranged marriage to bet against my likely death and/or one-way hell ticket the same day."

"Oh," Faith said, taken aback. "I assumed… Do you want me to get down on my knees?" She was fidgeting her toes, looking about to panic that she'd finally slipped off the tightrope of feelings they'd been negotiating. The hefty debt she felt she owed for all this was a megaton of awkwardness at times, and Buffy had been impressed with how she'd managed to keep from imploding out over it.

Buffy shoved her disappointment (and whatever else was clamouring at her) aside, and drew in a breath. Pragmatism time. Two adults, please. "No. Besides, there was that time with the spell… Anyway. Okay. If it'll hedge our bets, then yep, why not."

"Are you sure? We don’t have to."

"It's okay. Good suggestion. But can you let Angel in on it? I don't want-"

"I was already going to," Faith said, standing. "Xander offered to start looking for a non-Wiccan celebrant if you agreed, so I'll give him the go-ahead, then grab Angel." She was gone a second later.

Buffy sank into Faith’s vacated spot at the table, and stared at the window. 

She was still there when Spike found her half an hour later.   


He sat down across the table and cocked his head at her, waiting.   


"I've just agreed to marry Faith," she explained, before startling slightly. "God, I'm sorry. I should have asked you first. Told you. She sorta took me by surprise."

"Don't need my permission," he said, shrugging. "'Sides, told you at the start you should think about it."

"I know. She's... worried about this one. Now she has something to lose. Someone waiting on her coming home. So she thought -- or maybe Xander thought -- we should put something on paper as insurance."

"And you?"

She shrugged. "Apocalypse doesn’t quite garner the same reaction the umpteenth time round."

He watched her in silence, frowning. Eventually he prompted, "What else?"

She lifted her hand and flopped it back onto the table. "Nothing important. Dowling wants me to come on full-time. Faith has life plans -- the kind that aren't a sentence -- and an addiction to homewares. I'm about to lead the army in what might be the final hurrah, then… " She added quietly, "And Harmony's still living it up in the 23rd century."

"We got a plan for that hurrah yet? A plan that's  _ not _ in the history books?"   


"Not at last check-in," she mumbled. Something would work out. Or that giant red thing would stomp on them all. Right now, she couldn’t bring herself to care, as long as somehow things were decided for her.

"Fuck, Buffy, go and bloody well  _ make _ a plan then," he snapped, jumping up and gesticulating to the door. " _ Christ. _ We can perorate the meaning of life once you've secured one."

"Easy for you to say!" she shouted back, on her feet facing him without having decided to stand up. "You've been fucking immortal for a century! I wasn't supposed to be! I'm just a- a fading icon, that should have burnt out years ago, passé and rudimentary and too bitchy for anyone to risk telling me so!"

"You bloody-"

" _ Enough!" _ Willow's voice called out, and a solid, velvety, green wall appeared a couple of inches in front of Buffy’s eyes. Springing back, Buffy whipped her head to where Willow stood in the doorway, hand still extended from throwing up the wall.   


" _ Grargh!" _ Buffy snarled, throwing her hands up in frustration before storming out past Willow. 

  
  
  


"Angel. Word?" Faith asked.   


He followed her through the maze of hallways to Willow's own office, loaned for its extreme privacy. The room looked more like a small living room than a workspace, all soft furnishings and light, warm colours. She sat on the couch and waited until he joined her, looking extremely uncomfortable.   


"Relax," she told him. "Stuff on a need-to-know basis, is all."

He did. "Got it."

"So, turns out my mom died last year."

"I thought…" Angel began, puzzled.   


"Yeah. So did I. Bit too wishful thinking maybe. See, when she finally disappeared for good, my social workers pencilled her down as yet another body lost off the docks on the job… was a lot of that around that year.   


"Didn’t accept it at first. But when she never came back… after a while you get to thinking, better to believe she  _ couldn't  _ than that she just  _ wasn't. _ " She shrugged. "She'd skipped town, drifted down till she got to Philadelphia. Been living there ten years when she carked it back in November."

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged again. "Ain't your fault. Also, not the point. Anyway, first I know of all this is when I get a lawyer's letter last month. And don’t think I wasn't panicking when I pulled that one outta the post box. Thought maybe they'd changed their minds again and wanted to haul me back in..." She chuckled darkly, shaking her head, then heaved a sigh and fell quiet, a serious expression falling on her face. "I've got a brother, Angel. Half-brother, I guess; no one knows who his dad was, and mom ain't telling. Been in foster care since she went. Lawyers tracked me down eventually as only living family; legally obligated to notify next of kin."

"That’s… wow."

"Yeah."

"How old?"   


"Six years. His name's Courage, of all things."

"Wow," Angel said again, seeming at a loss. "Uh… congratulations…?"

She snorted. "Hold onto them. See, all they were required to do was send the notification. No obligation to place a child with family if said family don't measure up to their standards. And, ex-con, double homicide?  _ Not  _ what they're looking for. He'd be in care until he aged out, rolling the die for which pack of strangers he was stuck with next. Knowing that... I finally let G. sign off the paperwork to negate the last of my official record, under the new Slayer agreements. Wasn't gonna be enough for the bureaucrats, though; still got quite a name for myself as the dangerous one. Last fixed abode shared with a red-listed vamp-"   


He opened his mouth, but she jabbed an elbow into his ribs before he could say anything. Wincing, he snapped it shut again.   


"Don't start. No job, no education, plenty of other fuck-ups to bury that wrong assumption under. Took me out of the running. G was too young, or too old; Wil's is suspicious citizen numero uno right now. Xand's just had a baby of his own… they might have been willing, but I didn't wanna… Anyway, so I thought first maybe B might consider it, putting her name forward for the official side, so we could at least get him here safely. Then G talked to some high-up lawyer friend, and he said the simplest thing I could do to brush up on paper would be to find a more upstanding citizen who was keen on me, and go for the adoption as a couple."

She could see the wheels turning on his face. "And Buffy agreed to act as your partner?"

"Yeah. Packed her bags and we bought a house that week. Three bedrooms, nice yard… freaks the shit out of me. Social Services was impressed though. Case worker's a fan of the famous Buffy Summers." She quirked a self-deprecating smile, before it brightened into a real, though nervous, one. "He'll be here to stay in four days. Two-month supervisory period, then it becomes official."

"And Buffy goes home."

"You got it. She'll still be an equal parent on paper, so if something happens to me, he won't be thrown back in the system. She's… always thought she was too soft. Glad for it now."

"That’s… wow," he said again.   


She laughed. "This is lacking in dialogue even for you, buddy."

"And Spike’s on board with all this?" he asked, a trickle of hope still showing.   


"He asked me if I was sure the kid wasn't some mystical doohickey he was about to get pummeled defending from an army of demons. I told him the whole problem is there's no one else out there that wants this kid. I might not be much, but I'm all the family he's got." She shrugged. "He told Buffy to get moving."

Angel looked at her steadily, a small smile creeping onto his face. "It'll change everything," he told her. " _ Everything. _ "

"Sorta already has. I'm… I dunno. It's weird."

"I know," he said quietly. "Congratulations, Faith."

"Thanks. Oh, 'fore I forget. B and I are getting married today. And you gotta go easy on Spike. He's been brilliant about all this. They’re really good together, you know."

"I know," he grumbled petulantly. "Don't have to like it though." She gave him a hard look. "But I'll play nice."

"Good."

  
  
  


"Giles!" she snapped as she stormed back into the office he'd claimed for the day. "The future book. With the battle report. Give it to me. Then I need you, Willow, Xander, Dawn, in here in half an hour. Got it?"

"I'll, ah, go and find them," he said, rising from his seat and handing her the book.

"Good." She sat in his vacated chair and slapped the book down on the desk, then bent over it to start reading furiously.  _ Stupid moody vampire. Who does he think he is? I've got a plan. I've got the planniest of plans. _

"Did you say something?" Giles asked, looking back from the doorway.   


"Nope," she gulped, pressing her lips together. He watched her for a beat, then pulled the door shut as he left.   
  


_ How do you prepare for something that's already happened?  _ All Harth had to do was watch The Reckoning play out as it was, as it had before. Presumably somewhere in the hell portal confusion came his opportunity to grab whatever he was after, before leaping back to the future. Unless sending her to hell was the whole point, preserving his own timeline as it stood… but then why would he need to be a part of it? Time travel logistics did her head in. Or… maybe he'd  _ not _ gained whatever he was after. Maybe she'd dragged him to hell with her, and this time, armed with that knowledge, he was going to do something differently. Which could give them an opening, if they could somehow prevent him from receiving live-action memories of the new chain of events. Besides, even assuming he'd been successful in his time's past ( _ still doing my head in here! _ ), could he really stick to his script? The big bads could never resist the opportunity to gloat when they thought victory was assured.   


_ Live-action memory updates.  _ Harth's Slayer memories seemed to be detailed and, well,  _ rememberable _ , in a way that was just grossly unfair. It felt like he'd slithered uninvited inside her head and only had to look forwards to know exactly what she'd do next and how to counter it. Could he still see out to the 23rd century when he was physically in the 21st? They couldn't afford to bet that he couldn't. And even if he  _ was _ limited to the time he stood in, and was considerate enough to alter something from the battle he remembered, he'd know any plan she made to seize the advantage the second she made it. She thought she knew now why the Slayers had lost their memories in his past.

So, they needed two plans. One which was bound to be exactly what they'd all done last time, and one to seize control and level the playing field the moment Harth did something that threw out the history he knew. Make that three plans, if she counted the temporary one she'd make with the Slayers.   


She laid it out for the others once Giles returned with them; from now on, she was forecasting the battle as written, and the Slayers would get their prep instructions from her; plan one. Once the fight kicked off, however, Giles's task would be to throw her tactics out the window and enact his own (very different) one; plan two. Which they would start working on as soon as she'd left.   


It was only logical, which meant it was probably a safe bet it was precisely what they'd done last time too. But they still had to try.

"Should I grab Spike?" Xander asked.   


_ Well, duh. _ "Yes. And tell him to bring Erin, if he thinks she’ll understand the necessity of keeping it from her sister. That's it though; no one else is to know there's a switch of plans coming." He nodded. "Willow, Dawn?" she asked quietly.   


Dawn glared at her sullenly, while Willow dropped her eyes to the floor for a moment before raising them to meet Buffy’s. "We know," she answered for them both. "If it comes to it, we'll be ready."

It was on her tongue to thank them, but that felt cruel. "Good," she said instead, nodding firmly. "Willow, there's something else too. Is there any way you can interrupt the Slayer memories? Disconnect us from them somehow, even temporarily?"

Willow's brow creased as she thought it over, gaze turning inward. "I… possibly. When we drained everyone's powers through the scythe to fight Joanna their memories stayed intact, but perhaps…" She shook herself and looked up. "I can work on it?"   


"Make it your secret number one priority. We're going to hope Harth breaks his script, and as soon as he does, I want to be able to blockade the new one."   


Willow was already standing, excitement charging her as she saw the possibilities of the idea. "Got it. On it," she said, full of confidence.   


Buffy nodded at her, then told them all, "If you have a chance afterwards, try to get a nap in. We've got…" she checked her watch, "almost twelve hours until they arrive, and you've all been up all night. Faith and I will organise the incoming teams."

"Speaking of," Xander piped up with false levity. "Courthouse, on the way to the airport when you go to collect Saiara's crew. They’ll be expecting you, take your ID. And, uh, you need to take at least one person to sign as a witness. I wasn’t sure…"

"I'll take one of the girls. I don’t want…"  _ my friends there. _ "It's just paperwork."   


"Copy that."

  
  


Faith drove them to the courthouse, turning the stereo up to preempt conversation. In the backseat, Maria watched out of the window with vague disinterest; she was the least curious and most casually self-contained of the non-Center girls at hand, and Buffy had grabbed her as their signing witness for just that reason.   


Faith’s eyes were skittery as she cut the engine (and therefore the music), her half-smile plastic. Buffy paused her with a hand on her arm, waiting for Maria to get out and close the door before she spoke.   


"I'm not going to get cold feet," Buffy said.   


Faith sighed quietly. "What if I do?" she whispered. She let her tight smile drop, fear and vulnerability filling her eyes for a moment before she shoved them down. "I wasn’t made for this, B… I don’t know how to look after anyone."   


Buffy snorted a tiny laugh. "That’s exactly what Dawn said when she was in labour. But the 'learn as you go' thing seems to be working for her."

Faith shrugged. "Easy when you know what it's supposed to look like. Parenting."

"It's really not," Buffy said quietly. "I was… when mom… died, I couldn't step into her shoes. I couldn't become that for Dawnie. And it felt like what I  _ could _ be was hopelessly inferior to what she needed. But I was what she had, inadequate or no, and I guess somehow we sorta managed to muddle through together. So will you."

"I’m what he has. All he has," she said, firmness creeping back. Beneath these private patches of self-doubt, there was absolute steel in her decision to step up for her brother; she might not believe herself capable of success, but god help anyone who thought she wouldn't charge into the fight to protect him regardless.   


"But he's not the only family  _ you _ have," Buffy told her seriously. "This marriage might be a sham, but we're in it together. All of us. Hope you like it crowded."

Faith grinned, reaching for the door handle. "Guess that makes me a princess. Come on, then. Let's get this done."

"Faith, wait," Buffy said quickly. It went without saying… but she needed it said. "If it's me tonight… "

"You know you won't be going anywhere on your own," Faith said with complete confidence.   


"I know." She did, and felt like she ought to feel wrong for finding it so reassuring. "But if I do."

"Then, hopeless inferiority notwithstanding, I'll do my best for him."

"Thank you," she said honestly.   


In front of the courthouse doors, Maria looked at her watch then back at the car, and they hurried to join her.

Papers were signed, vows repeated, Maria took photos, then they continued on to the airport to collect the incoming Slayers. Back at the Center, things fell into familiar patterns of battle prep as weapons were checked and news exchanged between girls who hadn't seen each other since the last crisis. Xander pulled her aside briefly to let her know their own planning was on track, but Spike seemed to be suspiciously absent, and every time she thought she felt him nearby, someone else would come along with a question or complaint or demand she had to resolve. If she'd needed a reminder of why General Buffy was not a satisfactory lifetime career choice, the universe was certainly answering in abundance. 

  
  


Gates was stretched out on the paving stones in the sun, fur shifting slightly in the breeze. The purple skin of his hands was stained a more vibrant shade than usual, thanks to the copious amount of blueberries he'd consumed, and either they or the sunshine must have had a soporific effect on him, because he remained fast asleep as Erin approached and sat down beside her.   


Erin's silence could only mean bad news, not that Fray had expected otherwise. Or so she'd been telling herself. The lurk out there wasn't Harth, could never  _ be _ Harth. He'd been lost to her since the day she'd taken him with her on a grab, desperate for a decent meal, and it had all gone so horribly wrong. Still… couldn't blame a girl for dreaming things could be different, especially when a Slayer shows up flanked by not one but  _ two  _ soulful lurks. "What did he say?" she asked Erin, unable to let the waiting drag on any further.

"He said his soul's a curse. On him, and everyone around him."

"Doesn't look so bad to me," she grunted, eyes glued to Gates. She'd seen exactly how callous Buffy could be; the last time she'd shown up, she'd been willing to watch a woman get eaten in order to trail her attackers surreptitiously. The rest of her team were probably the same, and willing to brush off any chance of helping Harth in favour of treating him as just another lurk.

Erin sighed, looking off at the trees. "It did the way he told it." She shifted around to lie on her stomach on the grass beside Fray, lowering her voice. "When it hit him, what he'd done without a soul, the guilt crippled him for a cen. Couldn’t face anyone, wound up starving in a gutter. Then some higher power intervened, made him help the Slayer somehow. She fell in love with him, brought him happiness, and that broke the curse… went straight back to being evil. He killed her friend - the watcher’s lover - and another Slayer. Stalked Buffy, tortured her, set about unleashing hell on earth."

_ I've seen dead watchers, _ Fray sneered internally. _I s_ _ topped Harth’s attempt to unleash hell on earth. So what?  _ "And what, he got better?"

"They worked out how to re-curse him. But if he ever experiences happiness again, soul goes kaput, evil lurk returns. He's cursed to being miserable forever, with everyone he cares about at risk that one day he'll turn again and slaughter them all."   


"They've never found a way to take out the catch? Seems like a stupid condition."

"No. All he can do is stay away from anyone who could give him a moment of happiness." Erin shifted uncomfortably, then spoke in near-whisper, "Mel, he also told me to think about what our brother would feel if he knew what he'd done."

"It wasn’t him," Fray mumbled. "He's not responsible for any of it."

"Neither are you," Erin said quietly.   


Silence fell while she let the possible ramifications of cursing Harth sink in. "You ask about Spike?" Fray asked eventually.   


Angel had seemed the likelier target for Erin to flirt information and a possible ally out of, boyishly eager to hear about their world while Erin twirled her ponytail through her fingers. Spike was… distracted, somehow; more charming on the surface, yet completely unaffected by anything Erin said - she'd felt like he was simply humouring her until someone else arrived. There was something going on with him and Buffy, something way beyond being long-term colleagues. But Buffy and Faith were a couple apparently, so what did she know.   


"Yeah," Erin answered. "He said Spike’s different. Was just made wrong, or something. Didn't change how he felt about his family when he was turned, eventually got his soul back somehow. Wanted it, fought for it, when he was a soulless lurk. Gather it's a sore spot between them."   


"Huh," Fray said to fill the space. "Guess that's that then."

Erin wriggled over until she could drop an arm over Fray's shoulders, nudging her sister to lean into her in return. "Still got me," she said, trying to sound light. "And Gates."

"Yeah. Someone's gotta keep an eye on you laws," Fray teased.

  
  


"Want me to shove off?" Faith asked without opening her eyes. She was stretched out on her back on a particularly comfortable couch she'd just discovered in the basement training room.   


"Nah. Thought you mighta seen the Slayer around?" Spike asked from the doorway.   


"She's gone to the hardware store. Something about explosives." _And something about_ _'sulky vampires who are being all avoidy and two can play at that game, ha'._ He sat down on the couch opposite, so she opened her eyes and swung her legs around to sit up. "What's up? Still _a_ Slayer here, if that's any help."

"Nah," he said again, sounding regretful. "Kinda needs to be my one."

"Figured." Spike studied his hands in his lap, picking at flecks of nail polish and looking troubled. She bent down to adjust the laces on her boots as she spoke, "Hey, um, if it's about us getting married-"

"It's not." He sighed and sat silently for a few moments, before bursting out with, "She's bloody-" Catching himself, he pressed his lips shut before continuing more quietly, "Worried me earlier, sounding all defeatist. I mighta reacted badly."

"By shouting, or by skulking off to brood about it?" she asked, grinning wryly.   


"Shut up," he grumbled, folding his arms. Obviously casting around for a change of subject, he asked, "Wedding went through alright then?"

"No questions asked." She bit her lip. "Listen, umm, I just wanted to thank you again. For helping me with this."

"Haven't done a thing," he said, brushing her off.

"Oh good, cause I might need a favour," she said, then felt herself flush slightly. This whole humble-requests thing made her feel like crawling from her skin in discomfort.   


"I ain't giving you my blessing to consecrate it," he said, feigning insult before grinning at her.

"Too late," she hit back, licking her lips slowly. He rolled his eyes, and she tried again, uncomfortableness broken, "Look, if tonight doesn't go well for me. B’s there on the paperwork, but… God, it's stupid." She shook her head. "Just… whoever he'd end up living with, if she's doing the legal side, thought maybe you might be around somewhere too." She watched him warily, half expecting a polite fob off. He hadn't even met Courage yet, and the surly and silent way the boy had introduced himself to her and B the first four times wasn't likely to engender instant devotion from a stranger.

"Why?" he asked, looking perplexed. "He'll have plenty of superpowered bodyguards on hand, don't you worry."

"No, that's not- You're a good man, Spike, and I haven't met many of those. Doubt he has either. Was just hoping maybe you'd be there for him a bit. If you had to. Whoever else is or isn’t. Know you probably don't want…"

"Yeah. Could do that," he murmured, then swallowed nervously. Jumping up, he brushed his coat smooth as he added more sharply, "I'm not some bleeding Slayer-sibling babysitter, mind. Don't go expecting anything but a bad influence. Pickpocketing lessons, and proper cursing and the like."

Faith shrugged. "He already curses like a sailor. Might teach you something."

  
  
  
  



	6. PART 3: THE RECKONING - #B

**** Willow’s Empowerment Center.  
  


Spike watched from one of the building's turret windows as Buffy unloaded sacks of fertiliser in the backyard; looked like they were planning to rig explosives on the rear fence line. He'd avoided her all morning, the twitch under his skin warning that their not-even-off-the-starting-block argument in the kitchen was still ready to fire. It had felt like plain uncomplex anger at the time; the inevitable flash-bang result of too many frustrations, too much constraint, too much adrenaline with no physical outlet. And with physical outlets and a proper clearing of the air off the table, hieing away when she came near seemed like right good sense really. But the uncomfortable feeling persisted, grew and warped and twisted until it untangled itself into something he reluctantly had to recognise wasn't simple anger at all. Anger never was. It was just a label to cover over words like  _ worried  _ and  _ lonely  _ and  _ afraid.  _ And as he watched her out there now in the late afternoon light, he had to add  _ guilty. _   


_ Should have listened to her _ . Let her get out the nagging thoughts that had been distracting her all night so she could set them aside and move on to planning the battle unburdened. It was what they do. What they _ did.  _ Two weeks ago - before he'd headed north on a job, before she'd flown to Philadelphia with Faith - she'd jumped in apparent non-sequitur from discussing the latest on the wonder that was baby Joyce, to asking what he thought about the higher-ups in the supernatural crimes division of the SFPD they were both consulting for. He'd made some non-committal response, oddly discomforted. Then time was up and she was sneaking off from their one safely private space, overflowing with unspoken and unnecessary apologies for the way this farce bore a surface resemblance to times long put behind them, with all of its secret trysts. But she'd obviously kept the question hanging, waiting and growing, the loose thread of a ball of  _ what am I doing with my life?  _ The same question that had begun bothering her just in time for the previous apocalypse to interrupt and postpone. And now the odd discomfort that had twinged a fortnight ago was here in the heart of his twitch under the skin, refusing to remain unacknowledged.  _ What am I doing with your life?   
_

They patrolled, they took on odd jobs for Dowling at supernatural crimes, they pampered six somewhat overfed cats, they spent whole days ensconced in bed and giggling, and it was the most blissful time he'd ever experienced. But… it was time, inexorable, evidenced by her list of changes amongst the rest of the gang. Was he trying to freeze her with him, hold her forever in this perfect year? She was itching for direction, meaning, fulfilment, and the drip of guilt was whispering that maybe he'd dropped the ball. The house -  _ home - _ she currently shared with Faith pleased her in ways he'd not foreseen; something in the solidity, the ownership of it, seemed to ground her, despite it all being a ruse. She'd not had anything like it since Revello fell into his crater. She was happy in the apartment (had managed to be happy in their concentration camp trailer, for that matter), but she deserved more, and his long-spurned sense of propriety was kicking him from the nineteenth century for failing to provide it. Then there was the marriage. He'd suggested it to the two of them when they first began planning, and when Faith had been surprisingly taken aback, Buffy had grumbled,  _ well, he took back my ring after the spell broke, so I guess I'm not promised to anyone.  _ Conversation moved on, and obviously she'd seen the logic in the idea today. But feelings weren't logical, love was never rational; it was one thing to wave the issue off politely as inconsequential when they had something far deeper than any hasty fake marriage, quite another to fail to point that out. There was a cruel irony in the idea that while fighting for her so reliably in their Slayer/vampire dynamic, he might have let her feel unfought for as a woman.   


He'd needed to talk to her as much as she'd needed him this morning, but somehow everything had snapped wrongly instead. The sight of her apathy in the face of a one-way ticket to hell had been a vitriolic whisper that perhaps she was ready to burnout rather than fade away stuck in place beside him.   


So now she was down there, out of reach and swept along by time as it funnelled them all towards tonight. And he was up here, the princess frozen in a tower, needing to burst through the window and throw himself forward into life with her. Needing to explain,  _ what we have is so much that I've been distracted by the fear of losing it, instead of helping it grow.  _

  
  
  


“Great news!  _ You’re saved!" _ Andrew announced as he threw open the front door with a flourish. “ _ Andrew Wells has returned!” _ His already beaming smile widened when he spotted Buffy and Giles near the back of the room. “You guys, I’ve been consulting with various world governments on managing the supernatural. I’ve made  _ so _ much money,” he rushed out. “And I’m going to  _ hook you up _ with all the swag you need to whomp these demons… uh…” he trailed off as he finally took in the thirty Slayers readying weapons in the large entrance foyer. “Of course, you seem to have prepared pretty well on your own.”

Setting down the sword she'd been polishing, Buffy rushed forward to give him a hug. “Thanks for coming, Andrew. Like I said on the phone, what we mostly need from you are coms," she told him, drawing back to look him over. “Willow sent all the normal people home. But we’ve got an army of Slayers here. Lots of moving parts.” She nodded at the watching crowd. “If we’re going to change history and actually win this thing, we don’t have room for confusion.”

“‘No room for confusion’ is my middle name.  _ Voila _ ,” Andrew said with a flourish, lifting the lid of his briefcase and displaying its contents to her and Giles. Nestled into cutouts in the black foam lining were rows of tiny, sleek electronic gadgets. “In-ear receivers. Collar microphones calibrated to augment the closest human voice and reduce other ambient sounds. Enough for everyone here.” He snapped the lid closed and held the case out. “You  _ will  _ need someone coordinating it all, though. Like Oracle in the  _ Batman  _ comics.”

Giles stepped forward and accepted the case from him. “That would be me. Ah, presumably. I have not read the works you reference.”   


“Great. Come with me and I’ll show you your nerve center," Andrew said, grinning and reaching into the inner pocket of his coat for a juice box as he turned back to the door.    
  


The 'nerve center' was parked on the driveway, a large violet-coloured transport van with custom graphics airbrushed in teal on each side.   


“It’s… unique,” Giles said dryly as they approached.   


“Is that supposed to be you? As _Mr Little?”_ Buffy asked, indicating the image covering the rear of one side - a pinocchio-nosed man in a top hat and dinner jacket, who appeared to be severely reprimanding a Vampy Cat (rather than the mouse depicted with him on the local pest control billboards). "_Supernatural_ _pest extermination?"_

“It’s better inside,” Andrew said, trying hard not to grin in eager anticipation as he slid back the side door. “Your sanctum sanctorum, Master Giles." He presented the interior with a wave of his palm and slipped the juice box's straw back into his mouth smugly.

The blue glow of a bank of monitor screens lit the inside of the space, reflecting off textured aluminium flooring and a large glossy desk holding keyboards, headsets and other electronics. Another side held a smaller set of screens, with a bar fridge standing beneath them. Even the chair looked high-tech, ergonomic and complicated and probably designed to magically remove all your aches and pains.

Giles drifted inside as if magnetically drawn, dropping absently into the seat as his eyes swept over the facilities on offer. “Now  _ this _ is truly impressive. Well done, Andrew."

“And I’ll fight at your side, of course. I brought guns, too. Don’t worry, I’m licensed,” Andrew said, brandishing a handgun from inside his coat.

Buffy rotated his hand around and pressed it to his chest, aiming the muzzle off into the bushes rather than at the van's interior as it had been. “That’s really sweet of you. But guns won’t hurt vampires, or most of these demons. Old school hacky-stabby works best.” Giles pulled himself away from his inspection to turn back to them, and Buffy flicked a look his way to include him in her statement, “We’ve talked about it. And we’d prefer if you left.”

Andrew’s face crumpled. “But why? I’m  _ way _ less useless in a fight than I used to be!”

“One fighter more or less will not turn the tide. But… things should go badly…” Giles began, climbing out to stand beside him. “The  _ Watcher’s Council  _ has fallen on hard times. From what I’ve seen of the future, it will not recover on its own.” He placed a hand on Andrew’s shoulder, his face earnest. “It is imperative it be restored. If I survive, I can begin the process, but I’m too old to see it through. I believe  _ you’re  _ the man for that task.”

“I… I don’t know what to say,” Andrew murmured reverently, eyes glistening. He pulled himself up taller, squaring his shoulders as he swore, “I won’t let you down. You have my solemn word.”   


Giles patted him on the shoulder firmly before removing his hand, suddenly intent on adjusting his glasses. She nudged him with her hip gently;  _ you softy. _

“There’s something else," Andrew said. "I’ve been in touch with Riley. We’ve worked together a lot over the past year," he added proudly. “He and Sam were sent to Afghanistan. They can’t get back here in time. And it’s not by accident.” He dropped his voice and leaned closer, “Powerful elements in the human world are making sure you guys are on your own.”

“Good. That’s the way we want it,” Buffy told him with a smile. “If we don’t make it through this… keep up the fight. Knowing you’ll still be out there gives me strength.” She held her arms out, and he threw himself in for a hug like an overgrown puppy.

  
  


**** Inside.  
  


“Give me strength. You want our baby to grow up an  _ orphan?” _ Xander demanded.

“No! That’s why I want  _ you  _ to go  _ home!”  _ Dawn shouted, stubborn fury roiling inside her as she pointed to the door. She'd known he wouldn't like this, but tonight she needed him safe more than she needed him happy.

“ _ I’m the man, Dawn! I do the fighting!”  _ Xander exclaimed desperately, pointing both of his index fingers at her as if that could make it a fact.

“We’re in a women’s empowerment center, probably the wrong place for that argument,” she hissed, waving at the Rosie the Riveter poster on the gym wall and the 'Slay the Patriarchy' one behind the door.   


Xander dropped his fingers and slumped slightly, a hopeless plea pouring from his soft brown eye. "I can’t do it, Dawn. I can't leave you here."

She felt her voice melt in response. “Xander, I  _ have _ to be here to open a portal, if it comes to that. You don't. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but there’s nothing you can do that any of the Slayers can’t do better,” she said gently. She  _ loved _ being a stay at home mother, non-combatant by default; loved it far more than she'd ever anticipated, found it fulfilling and meaningful in ways she'd never expected. To say nothing of how she felt about being a  _ mother; _ every molecule in her was rebelling painfully at the idea of being separated from Joyce tonight. But Joyce lived in the world, and if Dawn had to stand between that world and the army coming to destroy it… she finally understood why Buffy'd had to jump.

Xander glanced down, accepting the truth of her words. When he met her eyes again his face was steady and calm. Softly, he said, “I can stand by the woman I love so she’s not facing death alone."

The final echo of  _ please go home!  _ faded away in her throat. If anything happened and he wasn't there with her, regardless of how powerless he might have been… he'd never forgive himself again. And if something did happen… a scared little part of her wanted him there just as much. They'd fought their way through countless battles (and dimensions) together, always knowing they had each other's back without question. She didn't want to face tonight without him. Or what she might have to do. “Your mom can watch Joyce,” she said quickly, pulling him to her to hug tight. “Let’s pray she doesn’t have to raise her.”   


Since walking out on her husband, Jessica Harris had turned over a new leaf. She'd made the move to San Francisco in the hopes of building a relationship with her son and his new family, and was finally seeing a grief counsellor to work through what had happened all those years ago. She had proven herself a doting and absolutely trustworthy babysitter. Still. Brushing aside the ookiness of planning for mortality, the first thing Dawn had arranged when her pregnancy was confirmed was a list of legal guardians longer than the pregnancy test stick, and Xander had made sure his mother was nowhere on it.

"Don't worry. I hear the newlyweds are clucky," he said with a chuckle. "Our little poppet's scooby gang for life."

  
  


**** The Roof.  
  


As the sun dipped behind the trees, Angel shuffled over from the stairwell to stand beside her on the edge of the rooftop, his hands dropping into his pockets. He never knew what to do with them around her; never knew what to do with any of himself around her since he'd become romantically involved with the hell king who shared her body. He was coming to give her an out, she knew, a chance to walk away with his encouragement before Illyria took over for the battle. “I understand, Angel. I’m in,” Fred told him, watching the sunset colours fade into velvety blues.

“Are you  _ sure _ this is your decision, Fred? I still don’t understand how your body-sharing arrangement with Illyria works,” Angel said. “I’d hate to think you’re being… I don’t know,  _ influenced. _ ”

“I don’t really understand it either. But I do know this,” Fred said, turning to him. “I’m okay with her fighting this fight. And I’m okay with her being with you. So I know it’s how you get your kicks, but stop beating yourself up.” She smiled teasingly, reaching out to pat his cheek. “I’m not afraid of dying. I’ve already done it, and I had way more to lose then," she added softly.  _ We both did. _ If only Lyri could lie to her too. “To be honest, ever since I came back -- resurfaced, whatever -- I’ve felt kind of… at sea.” She sighed, turning back to the horizon. “This might be the first time I know for sure what I’m doing and why. It feels good.” They both knew, and perhaps that was it. Mutual conviction. Illyria had been astounded by the change in Spike, the sense of calm certainty in himself that had peaked through at times last night. It was  _ her,  _ Buffy, the missing limb that had haunted him the whole time he'd spent with Angel's gang and its remnants. The look now in Spike’s eyes  _ hurt _ , twisted the blade forever locked in the hell king's gut, an ache of regret for what she'd taken from a man who'd loved just like that, a hollow of loss for him being lost forever in return. She couldn’t bring Wesley back, for herself or for Fred. But if there was any way she could help prevent her former pet from falling to the same fate… it felt right. And Fred was in full accord. “I just wish I could’ve said goodbye to Gunn. But he would have rushed right over here."

“I know. I recorded a message for Connor… Willow helped me set it up so he’ll only get it after this is over. She’s amazing with computers,” Angel said, admiration clear.

“It’s called a scheduled email. Anyone can do it,” Fred told him with a giggle.   


“Really?” Angel asked, eager and impressed. She chuckled again. 

  
  
  


“Yo, it’s getting dark. Time to take the field. You five by five over here or do you need a minute?” Faith asked, rapping her knuckles on Willow’s open office door.

Willow sat at her desk, staring down morosely at the gnarled trunk of a bonsai tree on the side of it. “No, come in, Faith. I’m fine. Just… thinking.”   


_Looks more like brooding._ She pushed the door almost closed and moved over to the desk. “Don’t blame ya. That was a pretty heavy rap future Harmony laid on us.”

Willow sighed. “The idea that I go dark  _ again… _ after all I’ve done to be better, to reconcile that part of myself…” She turned away to face the window. “...It makes it all seem pointless, y’know? Knowing that when things get bad, I revert back to the worst in me.”

“Makes sense you’re bummed. But this is all about  _ beating  _ what the future says is gonna happen, am I right?” Faith asked, moving around the desk to stand beside her chair with her arms crossed defiantly.   


“Sure. That’s the idea,” Willow murmured, sounding anything but sure. “But if the fight goes badly… there may not be another way.” Willow turned back, face downcast as her tear-filled eyes raised to meet Faith’s. “To save the world, Buffy might have to accept her fate,” she said shakily. “And I, mine.” Before Faith could respond, Willow startled up from her chair, eyes staring unfocused at the ceiling as she felt out with her other senses. “My perimeter defences. They’ve breached them,” she said quickly.   


“Then let’s go,” Faith said fiercely, grabbing her by the arm and shaking a raised fist. “And punch fate right in the nads.”

  
  


Something tingled through the air, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Buffy gulped the last sip of her coffee and dumped the cup on the nearest table, then headed upstairs.

"We're on," Faith confirmed as Buffy met her and Willow on the landing.   


"Everyone’s accessorised and waiting," Buffy told them. "I'm just gonna grab my own. Back door?"

"Yep," Faith said, smirking in anticipation. "They’ll be on the fenceline within ten minutes."

"Guess you'd better get ready to blow it beneath them then," she replied. "Wil, can you do the voice-spready-thing to grab everyone?"  _ Where the hell are you, Spike?  _ She had no doubt he'd appear beside her when the fighting started, but she  _ needed  _ to speak to him first. She couldn’t go into this with her stupid outburst still lumped between them.   


Willow nodded and moved to the railing over the main foyer, closing her eyes briefly to focus. Faith gave Buffy a wink and took off downstairs, and Willow’s magically enhanced voice permeated out through the building as Buffy continued on to the armoury.  _ It's kickoff time, people. Please gather inside the rear exit.  _

  
  


Tucking a stake into her front pocket, Buffy froze momentarily as she felt Spike approaching, her senses perking to attention eagerly while a little voice sniped that he'd had all day to find her and now they were beyond short on time.

“All right, Slayer? Word is the baddies approach,” he said, pausing just inside the doorway to the weapons room as she adjusted another pocket.   


“I’m ready. Just staking up,” she told him, dropping her foot from where she'd been bracing it against the table. He nodded once, turning to go again, and the melancholy look on his face tugged thickly in her chest. In two quick steps her fingers brushed his shoulder, pausing him in place. “Spike… if this doesn’t go our way…” she began. He turned back, ready to stop her there, so she hurried on before he could, “I’m sorry, that’s all. For how things went between us earlier. You were right, I needed a shakeup to put the rest aside.”

His eyes softened, cheeks lifting into a tiny apologetic smile. “I get it, Slayer. You’ve been through more since you were fifteen than most endure in a lifetime. Only right to want to stop and consider where you're going. I'm sorry too, luv.” He lifted a hand to one end of her hair, gliding his fingers across it gently. “And you’ve come a bloody long way. Inspired me, if I’m honest.” His hand slid down to rest on her hip, and he looked down at it as he continued, “Truth is, I’ve never been much good at being on my own. To the point where I shacked up with crazy vampire ladies and robots. Had a few things niggling at me these past weeks, and I've been trying to ignore them until we could talk properly, when I should damn well be old enough to think things through on my own first.” He sighed and brought his eyes back to hers, looking suddenly like a little boy trying to be brave. “Probably good for us both to be alone for a bit,” he said quietly.   


“William Pratt," she said, raising a hand to cup his cheek tenderly. "You know better than that.” She dipped her face to hold his eyes firmly with her own, feeling his flicker of tension drain away beneath her fingers as he relaxed into her touch. “As long as I’m here, you’re never alone.”

The last echo of uncomfortableness dissolved into nothing, and she felt her lips spread into a soft smile to mirror his. He pulled her to him, or she pulled him to her, and then they were holding each other tight, her cheek pressing into the hollow of his shoulder and everything just  _ fitting _ .   


“And you, Slayer… Buffy,” he murmured, squeezing her tighter. “And you.”

She drew in a deep breath, feeling like she was physically filling herself with some sacred source of power that only came from being held by him like this. He matched her breath, nose buried in her hair again, and suddenly it felt like nothing at all was insurmountable, tonight or any other time.   


"How long," he murmured into her neck, "until they're at the door?"

"Minutes," she sighed. "Maybe six-"

His lips cut her off as he pulled back just far enough to slam them against hers, urgent and hungry and intense. She answered him just as forcefully, desperate to taste him, swallow him, climb inside of him. One of the hands on her shoulder blades dropped to cup the top of her thigh, taking her weight from legs that had suddenly turned to jelly and pressing her hard against his hips as all of her blood rushed south. She needed to breathe, but she needed this more, and if Willow’s voice hadn't interceded, she'd have refused to let him go until she passed out.   


" _ Five minutes," _ the disembodied voice called. Spike pushed her back, hands gripping tightly as if he couldn't decide whether he was holding onto her or forcing her away. They were both panting, her heartbeat throbbing so loud he had to hear it as it swelled in anticipation. His eyes glittered, glowing darkly and charged with the same electric force rushing through her veins. Either she was going to get out there and roar her way through Harth’s entire army, or they were going to tear this room apart in a sudden fury of lovemaking.   


"We'll finish this later," she said vehemently, swearing it to them both.   


The hunger in his eyes sharpened to a lethal single-mindedness that promised they would, and god help the denizens of any hell dimension that got in the way. He nodded once, then handed her the scythe blindly from where she'd propped it against the table. "Right. Shall we kick some demon arse?”   


“Kicking will be the least of it,” she promised, leading the way downstairs. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. PART 3: THE RECKONING - #C

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //Italics and slashes to denote speech heard via radio//
> 
> It's fight time, rargh!

  
  


Buffy led them from the rear doors of the Women's Center, then stopped to study the forest beyond the gardens. The top of the treeline quivered with the movement of Harth’s army, and a matching tremor running through the earth beneath her feet probably confirmed the presence of the two gigantic demons from the silicon valley skirmish.  _ Christ, they could flatten us.  _ She resettled her grip on the crossbow she held in one hand, while the other smoothed the belt which held the scythe in place on her back.  _ Bigger just means easier to hit. _

_ They're swinging east,  _ Willow's voice murmured inside Buffy’s head. The witch hovered above the roof of the building, the dark grey of her coat blending into the night sky.

_ Flash coms, remember?  _ Buffy thought in her direction.  _ Not that I don't appreciate the personal touch. _ East was good. That side of the Center bore flat open lawn all the way to the fence and treeline. She led everyone around the side of the building as Willow’s voice came over her earpiece.

_ //They're moving around to the east. I've got eyes on the tallest.// _

The teams fanned out along the side of the building, weapons ready and faces set. “Harth is the key to their plans. He knows everything that’s going to happen. We take him out, that’s our best shot at winning this,” she reminded the group behind her. Turning to her right, she eyed Fray and Erin for a moment. They'd made their feelings clear, but she had to give them a final chance to back out if they had any doubts. “Fray, Erin, you guys know him better than anyone… but he’s your brother. If you don’t want the job of targeting him…”

“ _ Not _ our brother. A monster wearing his skin," Fray said, firm. "And my fault he’s like this,” she added grimly. “My problem to set right. Erin, you steady? I can do it solo.”

“I’m fine," Erin said, hefting her future-bazooka-gun-thing. "But  _ Gates…  _ I mean, should he have a gun?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow at where the demon rode on Fray's shoulder with a green laser gun in one hand and his teeth bared threateningly.   


“He’s a better shot than me,” Fray said, smirking and patting his foot.

The nearest trees suddenly rippled, underbrush crumpling down as a solid wall of vampires and smallish demons marched from it. Behind them, just clearing the trees, were the hulking shapes of larger creatures, all the way up to the gigantic shadows of the two unfairly ginormous beasts they'd met before, and the curve of a serpentine neck that had to be Wilkins.   


“There they are,” someone murmured behind her.

  
  


“There they are. Just like I remember,” Harth purred, adjusting his glasses and tucking his staff safely between his thigh and the snake's neck.   


“I’m all a-quiver,” Wilkins said. “Shall we?”

"Not yet," Harth told him, grinning. "They're about to explode the fenceline. Let those troublemakers up front take it."

  
  


“ _ Show ‘em whose world this is!” _ Buffy roared, swinging the scythe in a full arc over her head to take the wing off some hideous flying thing. The battlefield was chaos, a mad crashing of weapons and flesh and teeth and claws as the two sides fought through the first wave of collision with barely enough room to stand.   


“You’ve been reading my talking points,” Wilkins called cheerily from the back. “We demons were here first, missy… and we’ll be here  _ last. _ ”

_ Does he ever stop? _ She ignored him in favour of nearer concerns, dropping into a diving roll as a yinthet demon threw itself at her and coming up swinging to take it out from behind. 

  
  


Parked up safely a mile down the road, Giles watched in growing horror as the fight played out on the bank of screens before him. Lita's bubblegum-pink hair flashed in a group on the western flank, grabbing his attention just in time for him to watch as the triple prongs of a tridook demon tore straight through her stomach. He leapt up in his seat again, the blue glow of his magic flaring out blindingly from each hand before he shoved it under control and forced himself back down. It was madness to have him on this duty, doing the job any vanilla mortal could, when he had enough magical punching force to more than stand his own in the fight. If he was- if he could just-   


_ //Giles?//  _ Buffy asked in his headset. Anyone else listening would hear only a steely request for instructions, but her heartbroken plea hidden beneath it gripped him by the chest. He was right where he should be, watcher to his Slayer. To them all. And if this was to be it, he would vindicate Buffy’s faith in him to the last. "Yes," he told her quietly.  _ I'm here. _ He glanced over the bank of monitors, pinpointing where she could be most effective. "Head north. Flyers are the biggest problem there." With everything the Slayers knew potentially accessible by Harth, he was redirecting them wherever possible with last-second alterations to manoeuvers and targets. He was, he thought for the hundredth time, probably only doing exactly what he'd done in Harth’s version of history. But they still had to try.   


Buffy was moving before he'd finished talking, ducking beneath a swooping wing of one flying demon and bringing the wooden end of the scythe up through its neck as it turned.

He swept his eyes across the screens again, scanning quickly for key points with the experienced gaze of someone who had seen far too much bloodshed over the years. “Red team, watch your flank.  _ Dawn! _ Stay behind Willow, do  _ not _ expose yourself! We need you in reserve!” he shouted, watching until she backed closer to Willow again with a surly frown.

_ //Blue six to control, we’re being overrun!//  _ Shar called out on her channel.  _ //Need backup-- AIIEEGH!// _

“Good God…” Giles murmured, listening to her scream die out in his ears as her body fell limp and bloody to the ground on the screen before him. Bashing the keyboard to switch to the neighbouring team's channel, he barked out, “Green team, reinforce blue!  _ Now!”  _ They surged towards the besieged blue team, and he switched channel again to order two teams on the other side to close up.

_ //Green leader to control. Enemy repelled. Fifty per cent casualties on blue team. Please advise.// _ Brooke said, panting shakily.

“I… see. Green team, merge with blue team. Crisis protocol,” he told them, wondering at the way his voice managed to come out sounding so calm. Muting his microphone briefly, he murmured to himself, “Steady on, old man… steady on.”

  
  


“We’ve agreed to give you one final chance to join us, Illyria. To be the conqueror and ruler you once were,” the lizard demon said, his thick tail wrapping around her neck like the coils of a python. “Refuse, and you’ll be confined in a coffin, as you were ages ago. Imprisoned for millennia… conscious, aware, yet helpless.” His tail lifted her from her feet, squeezing ever-tighter as she swung in midair, her fingers scrabbling desperately for a grip on the smooth scales crushing her throat. “Overcome the human taint within you. I can see you fear what you are becoming.”

“I...do…” Illyria rasped out, fingers finally gaining purchase on the thickest portion of coiled tail, “...But you should fear it more,” she hissed. With a savage wrench of her hands, she ripped his tail clean through and shoved the dismembered portion away from her neck.

The lizard demon let out a screaming “ _ AAGHH!” _ of pain, falling back as Illyria regripped the bleeding stump of his tail and prepared to tear the rest of him limb from limb.

  
  


"How's that half-coi law gun doing?" Mel called back.

“Intensity at max! It’s enough to burn the lurks!” Erin shouted, half a step behind her sister as they dodged and wove between demons and Slayers and flaming boulders to reach their target.   


Harth clung to the neck of the giant snake, his fourteen-year-old child's body looking even smaller tucked up behind its monstrous head. The snake's nose dipped suddenly, and Harth’s hands startled for a tighter hold, eyes going wide behind his glasses. A strangled scream cut through the background cacophony of sound, then the snake's head lifted again, the upper body of a Slayer protruding from its jaws. Her hands grasped desperately at thin air as the snake bit down, then went loose, flopping like a broken doll's as a burst of blood gushed up between the snake's teeth.

“Harth! Harth, you have to scan how wrong this is!” Mel shouted, stopping several yards back from the pair. “I’m  _ sorry! _ I’m sorry I couldn’t save you!” Her voice twisted with a sob, and Erin moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with her. “But this is mental. Just being here -- you, me, Erin -- we could change our future!” Mel begged. “ _ We could wipe out our whole world! Everyone and everything we know! _ ”

“Y-you’re right,” Harth said haltingly, pale and wide-eyed. “Maybe I should--”

Erin's breath caught, and for a moment everything around them seemed to pause in silent prayer.   


Then Harth's face shifted, distorting into the ridges and fangs of a lurk. “Oh, wait. I was going to slaughter everyone when I get back there anyway,” he sneered. “ _ Hahaha! _ Never change, Mel. You remind me why I’m so glad I’m not a warm anymore.”

At her side Mel fell to her knees with a gasp, head lowered. “He’s gone, Mel. Our brother is gone,” Erin said, dropping to a squat beside her. “We owe it to him to mop that thing using his face.”

“I… I know,” Fray sniffed.“I’m sorry, Harth. For who you were… for my little brother…” She swiped an arm across her face angrily, smearing away tears. Then she planted her palm against the ground and shoved off it, throwing herself towards Harth with her laser gun blazing. “ _ I’ll make the monster burn!” _ she snarled.   


Erin levelled her own weapon and fired with her, twin bolts of white slamming into the neck of the snake as Harth dove for cover around it.   


“ _ Hey! _ Little help here!” Harth shouted, and a bat-faced creature dove from the sky, putting itself between him and the lasers.   


Shots tore through its wing, bringing it crashing down on top of her and Mel as more and more of the things swooped in to defend their leader.

“Siblings. Am I right?” the snake said jokingly as it slithered back.

  
  


With Harris and the bit sticking close behind Willow, Spike mirrored Buffy’s tactics, darting between the teams of Slayers to cut down the demons attacking them from behind. Already turning to pick his next target as his sword sunk through the chest of the demon in front of him, he caught a glimpse of Angel nearby, a furry brown thing leaping up behind him unnoticed. “Your six, wanker,” he shouted.

Angel swung his sword blindly as he spun, moving on faith, and took the thing's head off cleanly. “Got it. Thanks,” he shouted back. He backed up a few steps, to where they could cover each other's blind spots without getting in the way. “After all these years, we’ve gotten pretty good at fighting together,” he called over his shoulder almost hopefully.   


“You mean me carrying that massive forehead of yours…” Spike started automatically, before the sincerity in Angel's voice sunk in.  _ Christ, you want to get all touchy-feely battle buddies now? _ Well, could ask for worse backup. “...Nah. Sod that,” he barked. “Reckon you’re right, mate.” He shoved his sword through the gaping mouth of a nearby demon, snickering when Angel broke into a grin in response. 

  
  


“Yo, G., how’s it look?” Faith asked, decapitating another demon onto the ever-growing pile at her feet. Trouble was, they just kept coming, and she couldn’t afford to turn her attention to the truly gigantic fire-slinging hellbeast crushing his way through a team of Slayers nearby. It did at least seem to be moving slower than it had at the Wolfram and Hart fight, and she almost suspected some combination of Willow and Illyria was to thank for that- before scurrying her thoughts off in a different direction. If she recognised tactics, Harth would remember them through her, slimy little shit. Not that their plans of secrecy seemed to be doing enough. Smoke stung her eyes and shortened visibility, but she didn't need to look far to know things weren’t going well.

_ //Things… could be better.// _ Giles confirmed in her earpiece. 

  
  


Huddled close to the screens, Giles took a deep breath. Faith needed the truth. “We’re killing three to their one. But they outnumber us  _ five _ to one,” he admitted. “And they don’t seem to care about each other. Whereas we…” His voice failed him, bruised beneath the heavy lump in his throat. Hand clenching the edge of the desk, he forced it back under control. “I’m sorry, Faith. It’s just, I trained some of these women. And now I’m hearing their last choking breaths as they die."

  
  


_ //I’m beginning to wonder if losing their powers and memories wouldn’t be the preferred outcome.// _ Giles finished.   


“I hear ya…” Faith murmured, the decision resolving itself inside her. If Giles had seen it, then Buffy would be seconds away from the same realisation, if she wasn't there already. She would do what she had to, because that was just who she was. And Faith would go home to an empty house full of Buffy’s things, with a child she had no idea how to care for alone, or maybe not, because no one in their right mind would give her a child to care for on her own. And there'd be an empty apartment across town where she'd once come cap-in-hand to ask two people to put their lives on hold for her, and they'd done it without hesitation, because that was who they were.

It wasn't fair.   


Dodging around the next demon, she bolted across the field to Willow, the glow of yellow magic marking her position like a beacon. “Yo, Wil! Huddle up. I got a plan,” she panted.

“At this point, I’m open to anything,” Willow shouted, hands quivering as she fought to push out enough magic to take down a pair of demons flying overhead.   


“The thing with B… where the demons all go to hell, and she goes with ‘em, to keep ‘em there,” Faith said.“Let’s do that. But with  _ me  _ instead of her.”

The magic connected, and the creatures fell in a cloud of black smoke, giving Willow enough of a lull to meet Faith’s eyes over her shoulder. “Faith, you can’t-”   


“No, damn it, listen to me,” Faith snapped, moving closer as the glow faded from Willow’s hands. “When you met me I was  _ way _ messed up. I did… the kinda crap you shouldn’t be able to come back from.” No clean legal slate was ever going to let her forget, and she didn't want it to. “But you guys stuck by me. B. stuck by me," she said ardently. “And I… I like to think I’m a better person now. You gave me the chance to be that.”  _ All of you.  _ “I’ve had more breaks than I deserve. If I can take B.’s place, and save the damn world, hell, it’s the least I can do.”

“Faith, that’s incredibly brave of you. And shows how far you’ve come. But what I meant was…” Willow turned to face her, “...for Buffy to hold the demons in hell, she needs a power-up. That comes from the spell I used last year, which is focused through her scythe." She placed a hand on Faith's shoulder. “ _ Her _ scythe. Not yours. No substitutions.”   


“Huh." She dropped her eyes to the ground. “Shoulda known,” she mumbled. “Shows why I leave the grand plans to other folks.”  _ Sorry, B. I tried. _ Hefting her sword, she looked back up at Wil. “Word," she said, with a short nod. “Guess I’ll just keep kicking ass ‘til the monsters are gone or I am.” Catching a glimpse of Wilkins rearing up through the smoke, she tightened her grip and charged after him.

“Hey, daddy issues. You and me got unresolved crap,” Faith snarled, swinging her sword across his neck with a two-handed grip on the hilt. The thick skin of the demon made it feel like trying to cut a car tyre with a plastic knife, but a shallow line of red followed in the wake of the blade.  _ It bleeds, it can die. _

“ _ MGPPH!” _ Wilkins mumbled around the body of a Slayer, before letting her drop to the ground. ( _ Long auburn curls… Denise? Don't look.) _ “Now that is just inappropriate, making me talk with my mouth full,” he complained.   


She was ready this time, waiting for the tail to lash towards her before leaping straight up over it. “How’s this for inappropriate? Nerd Dracula is  _ using _ you,” she called out, injecting every bit of derision she could into her voice. Her leap took her higher than his head, and she came down stomach-first on top of his skull, scrabbling to hook her fingers into one of his bony eye sockets and bring her sword around. The unexpected extra weight and the attack at his sensitive eyes sent his head crashing towards the ground, and every bone in her body jarred as he hit it chin first. “You keep following his orders, this ends with you all getting  _ banished _ ,” she hissed into his ear. “He gets some kinda level-up and goes back to his time. But  _ you  _ go to  _ hell _ .”

“Our agreement is  _ our business, _ Miss Nosy Parker,” he said, a hint of irritation sneaking in. “You lost the right to any input when you chose your hoodlum friends over me.” He flung his head up at an angle, catapulting her through the air.

Faith came down on her feet fifteen yards back, her free hand slapping onto the ground as she caught herself in a crouch. “Okay, fine. You wanna go to hell so bad?” she asked, flipping her sword around to try for a direct stab. “I’ll send you there in  _ pieces _ .”

  
  


Buffy’s scythe severed the arm of the demon in front of her, releasing a burst of lime-green liquid that fizzled and popped. Her next swing split the creature’s skull, and a kick of her foot shoved its body back before any of the fizzy stuff could splatter on her. Off to her left, Faith was hanging from the hilt of her sword, the tip buried high in Wilkins's neck; he didn't look the least bit hampered. Before Buffy could scream a warning, he pounced down on a woman fighting near his tail, twisting to rub his neck across the ground and scrape Faith lose as his jaws crunched shut. Whirling, Buffy took in the scene around her properly for the first time in minutes, eyes jumping from fight to fight in rising dread. Val's team fanned out as something dove at them from the sky, and a huge talon slammed through Stacy's chest before it lifted off again. Spike threw himself to the ground on his back in a desperate last-second dodge as some huge clawed thing dove at him and Angel, barely rolling in time to snag it by a rear limb and direct its swing away from Angel's head; there was something else racing up behind it already, and they'd had to abandon their attempts to cover anyone else. Flames from burning rocks, trees,  _ bodies, _ cast the fields in a lurid orange light through a haze of smoke and dust.

_ We're losing.   
_

“Giles, tell the core team to form up on me,” Buffy said. “It’s important.”

There was a brief but heavy pause, then the orders rolled out, too smooth to not have been prepared over the last several minutes ready for her word.   


Joining up with Spike and Angel, she helped take down the last few demons around them and clear the open space the teams were now fighting to form a defence around. Fray and Erin darted over a moment later, then Willow jogged up leading Dawn and Xander.   


“What’s up? The others can’t hold the line for long,” Angel asked, stepping forwards.

“We can’t win this. Not the way it’s going,” Buffy said, speaking to them all. “They know everything we’ll do. And they know how to counter it.”

“I could open a portal for us," Dawn rushed out, raising her hands. "If Willow can push them back with a spell, we could all escape to… I don’t know, Wyoming.”   


“That changes history. Then it’s a  _ fair fight, _ at least,” Xander added.   


“But then we don’t know what might happen. Maybe they come after us with reinforcements. Confident, because they won the last battle. Maybe Harth skips time again, and plants a bomb under our beds when we get home last week,” Buffy said, an ache of sympathy rising for Dawnie's despairing stammer, for all of them. “But there’s one way this ends that we  _ know  _ saves the world.” She hardened her voice, drawing authority around her like a cloak. “History plays out like it’s supposed to,” she said firmly. “They all go to hell.” She took a breath. “And I go with them.”   


There was a moment of shocked silence, no one quite ready to hear what they'd all known was coming.   


“ _ No! _ We still have a chance,” Angel said suddenly, raising his sword. He would fight until he fell, and feel righteous as everyone died honourably with him.

“For once he’s right. Ain’t over yet,” Spike said, in a panicky distortion of the voice he used to wheedle her into sense when life got her down. His eyes were twitchy with grittily forced denial, underscored with desperation.

She turned her eyes to the sky over their heads, opting to track the flight of a blood-splattered nouveau-vamp rather than watch as the veneer of hope died on Spike’s face. “I love you guys for what you’re trying to do. But there’s really no way we can win like this,” she said, twisting to look behind her as the too-familiar dull crunch of breaking bones and tearing flesh announced the death of another Slayer, barely ten yards away. “And if I have to watch anyone else die…”  _ God, was that Cam? _ “...I don’t think I want to.”

  
  


Buffy sought out his eyes as she turned back to them all, an anguished plea crossing soundlessly.  _ Was that Cam? _

He knew it was.  _ Guess this is it then.  _ Swallowing down his false hopes like so much sand, he tightened his lips into a grim hint of a smile.  _ I'm with you.  _ Reaching over, he shoved Angel's sword hand back down to his side.

Her expression smoothed, giving over to that steely Slayer calm. “Wil, you okay going with the backup plan we discussed? Putting the combined power of all the Slayers in me, making me the uber-slayer again?” she asked. “You’re the one who ends up--”

“I know," Willow cut in. "But you’re right, it’s the only way. That spell will weaken me, though.”

“As long as you can still force the monsters into Dawn’s portal, we’re good,” Buffy said. 

  
  


Giles watched her straighten her spine, the blue cast of the low-light cameras starkly capturing the resolute loving fierceness of her as she gave out orders once again to sacrifice herself for them all.

_ //Now I have to rally the troops. Giles, you copy?// _ she asked.   


“Yes. And if I may say, Buffy… you have surpassed every hope and ambition I ever held for you. I never had children of my own…” 

  
  


His voice was gentle, tender,  _ Gilesey _ , stirring up a memory of the smooth vinyl seat of his old Citroën and the scent of wool and books in the fabric of his tweed coats.

_ //...and it’s probably just as well. Because I cannot imagine how they could ever compare to you.// _ he finished.   


“Giles, I-” she cut herself off with her hand to her lips as her eyes flooded with tears.

_ //I know. And we’re short on time. I’ve already briefed the other Slayers. You have an open channel to them.// _

Nodding, she took a quick steadying breath and moved her hand to her mic. “Okay. Backup plan it is. You all know what we’re doing here,” she told them. “I did this once before, when the whole world was in danger. And it killed me knowing I might be taking power away from someone who needs it.” It had haunted her afterwards, imagining how they'd felt to be suddenly struck powerless without warning. “Someone who was in a fight for her life, or helping save someone else’s, or… anyway.”

  
  


_ //That’s not going to happen this time.// _ Buffy swore.

Illyria punched a fist through the back of another demon, teeth bared in fury as two more Slayers fell beside her. They were fighting with everything they had, but it just wasn't enough, and she couldn’t cover the whole line.

  
  


Mila ducked the swipe of a demon's clawed hand and drove her sword into its neck with a feeling of disassociation, Buffy's voice echoing through her ears.  _ We're doing it, then. This is the last time I'll stand up as a Slayer. The last time I'll have the strength to-  _ she spun ninety degrees, bringing her sword down to cleave through the torso of the nouveau-vamp rushing at herself and Tiggy  _ -do that.   
_

_ //All of you, pull back. The others’ll cover you.// _ Buffy ordered.

A burst of blue-white lightning split the darkness of the open ground they were defending, arcing out from Willow's hands and across a massive section of the sky. Incinerating nouveau-vamps and flying demons as it went, it curved down to ground level behind the line of defence, partially clearing a gap for them to retreat.

_ //Thank you for everything you’ve done. Thank you for everything you’ve sacrificed.//  _ Buffy’s voice spoke calmly into her ear.

Tiggy had frozen, looking left and right from the Slayer teams dropping back, to Buffy’s small group ahead in the open.   


"We can’t run away!" Mila cried.

Tiggy's indecision snapped, and she grabbed Mila's arm as she turned, shoving her several steps ahead. "Follow the order," she snapped harshly, her face contorting with regret. 

  
  


Gameface in action, Spike snarled silently at a group of demons attempting to block the retreat, ears glued to the voice in his earpiece.   


_ //If this works right… you won’t have to fight anymore. I don’t know if it’s a win…//  _ Grace and strength imbued her every word, tightening his chest with a cascade of love and pain and admiration.  _ //...But if you live… love… if you’re happy…// _

  
  


“...It’s sure as hell not a loss, and I’ll take that,” Buffy finished quietly. She felt calm right to her core now; assured and collected. This wasn't what she wanted; it was the very opposite of what she suddenly knew, without a shadow of a doubt (and at utterly the wrong time), that she wanted to do with her life. But that was okay. It was her job, so that the rest of them could go and live that other life for her. Besides, she  _ would  _ find her way home eventually; could hardly let Angel best her on that score.  


“Everyone who’s not a Slayer -- and Fray, since you’re from the future --  _ cover us!” _ she told her team, holding the scythe out before her for Wil to take hold and do her thing.

“It might take me a second to recover from this, but I’ll back you up as soon as I can," Willow said, placing her hands either side of Buffy’s on the shaft of the scythe.

“No needs, sister,” Fray called out.

“We’ve got this,” Erin growled, shoulder-to-shoulder with her.

“Start running. And don’t stop,” Buffy shouted to a group of Slayers still nearby.   


“You can have my power, B., but I ain’t running from a brawl,” Faith shouted cockily. “Especially when Fray’s monkey hooked me up with the ray gun I’ve wanted since I was five.” Gates was gibbering something that almost sounded like instructions, bouncing along beside her as she clicked some sort of cartridge into place in her new toy.

  
  


"Spike?" Giles asked, cutting his mic to single channel.   


_ //Yeah?// _

How on earth to put it into words; the _by god,_ _look after her, _**_please_**_, _that he'd be expecting to hear; the _I find that I'm devastated at the notion of losing you too; _the _I know I've never said, but…_

_ //Stiff upper lip, mate.// _ Spike murmured, sardonic on the surface but with a gentleness Giles had never heard directed his way.   


Somehow, he felt Spike understood. "Indeed," he said quietly. "Thank you."

  
  


While Willow closed her eyes, drawing together the frame for the spell, Buffy surveyed the battlefield, relieved with how well the rest of the Slayers were putting distance between themselves and the fight. Her team was pulling in and closing ranks as the demons redirected back towards them, everyone working in smooth alliance.   


“I love all you guys so much,” she told them quietly, her eyes filling up again. A moment later Willow’s hands shifted slightly, and the witches eyes opened, ready. “Wil… let’s do it,” Buffy said. 

  
  


Harth shivered with a sudden jolt of excitement, forcing himself to hold steady while the witch began her spell. The power built inside the scythe slowly at first, a faint white glow along its edges. Then it picked up steam, brighter and brighter until the two girls were tiny black splodges inside a retina-burning ball of raw power.

“Now,” he told the snake, and shoved off with his legs as the creature tossed him high. Bringing the staff around in front of him as he flew, he clapped his second hand onto the shaft and swung the hook down towards the head of the scythe. It connected in a tidal wave of power, hooking behind the back curve of the blade and channelling every drop of energy drawn in by the spell directly into him in an explosion of white lightning.   


“Hey!” Buffy shouted, stunned, as he wrenched on the staff to try and shake her free of the scythe. The witch fell instantly, but Buffy twisted with Harth’s fall and managed to free the blade.   


No matter. He had what he'd aimed for. “ _ Yes!!” _ he roared, lifting the still-crackling staff high before him. The blinding wave of electric power zapped from his own body now, surrounding him as the tail end of it drained in through the staff.

“ _ What did you do?”  _ Buffy screamed.   


Updated memories, clearer than ever thanks to the influx of Slayer power, told him that right now she'd be recovering to swing the scythe at the back of his neck. He flung a hand back, catching the scythe just below the blade and stopping it before it touched him. “You recognise the staff? You should,” he told her. “Search your ancestral memories. It belonged to one of the wizards who created the  _ first Slayer. _ ” He watched her eyes widen in recognition, then wrenched the scythe from her hands as he kicked her through the air. “Men gave you your power,” he snarled. “And a man just  _ took it back.”  _

  
  


A yelped grunt of, “ _ HNGGH!”  _ left her lungs as she hit the ground. A second later the scythe landed beside her, discarded contemptuously by Harth before he raised an empty hand and seemed to simply  _ absorb _ the rays of Fray's gun as she ran at him firing.   


“You whining navel-gazers have been agonising over how to change history?” he sneered at them. “ _ I just did!” _ He swung the staff around and into Fray with a  _ WHRAKK _ of impact, throwing her aside effortlessly. “I had the Slayer’s memories. Now I have  _ all their power _ , too. And I’m going to use it to  _ end you all,” _ Harth crowed. “Congratulations. The Reckoning you heard about is cancelled. Instead I’ll kill you, then go back to my time and conquer it…” He lifted a hand high, and the crackly white glow of power -  _ our power - _ surged out around it. “...and give the demons dominion over earth. Forever," he finished with malevolent glee.

“That… was not supposed to happen...” Buffy said slowly. 


	8. PART 4: FINALE - #A

  
  
  
  


_ That was not supposed to happen. That was not  _ ** _ supposed  _ ** _ to happen. _   


"Got it!" Xander shouted behind her, and she slammed down the whole line of thought, rocketing her brain into a thousand-mile sprint over her surroundings her position that jingle on the radio how many burning rock piles were on the field now and who ever heard of burning rocks anyway and were they coal perhaps and she should ask Spike he would know but Harth was closer and charging at her so "Are they coal? The rocks and what do you think you brought them here after all and really that was pretty damn rude and what would your snakey friend say about this mess because it's awfully full of germs and bacteria and-"

"Buffy, it’s done," Willow called weakly.

She sucked in a breath.  _ Oh thank god.   
_

Harth had paused momentarily, thrown by her behaviour but obviously too slow to work out what she was doing.   


"I had to block you with a two-way wall," Willow added anxiously. "You won’t be able to access Slayer memories yourself until we let your own rejoin them."

"Well, I think after fifteen years doing it, I can probably remember how to throw a punch unassisted," she called back with a grin.   


Hefting the scythe, she narrowed her eyes and zeroed in on Harth.  _ Let's see how well you do in a fair fight, asshole. _ The predatory growl that rumbled up in her chest was all her own now, no shadowy reflection of an ancestor's hunting cry. She owned it. “RRrAaaGgh-”   


Harth stopped the scythe by catching it mid-swing, impossibly strong and equally fast. “Ooh, sorry, that won’t work. Not when you’re only one Slayer and I’ve got the power of  _ all the others, _ ” he taunted. “In fact…” he looked down at the scythe in his hand, “...I think this is mine now.” Her jerked her forwards as he tore it from her grip, and swung his foot up in a vicious kick to her lower chest. It was probably the hardest single hit she'd ever experienced.   


The  _ BRAKK _ of breaking bones filled her ears as all the breath left her body, pain overwhelming her senses. Several seconds later, she hit the ground blindly without a hope of directing her landing. She had no idea how far he'd booted her, but the upswell of sound from Harth’s army had to mean that they would soon be on top of them all in any case. Rolling, she made it to her hands and knees before she had to stop, lungs burning and stabbing as her rib bones grated sharply enough that she would have gasped, had she any breath to. Black spots swam in her vision, pulsing and merging as she fought for breath, and the surrounding sounds greyed out in a spin towards unconsciousness. She'd seen Slayers go down with their chests caved in, suffocating helplessly with sheer panic in their eyes, or horribly swift and silent if they passed out.  _ Breathe. Do it, damn you. You're just winded.  _ Holding that thought, she forced her stomach muscles to move instead, in, out, rasping in a weak pant at last. The blackness steadied in its creeping advance, swirling nauseatingly instead until she closed her eyes and just focused on  _ breathing _ . Sounds slowly returned; a snatch of Xander shouting, Spike's fury-filled snarl, the wet bubbling of air in her throat. As the pain began to divide into separate sensations, she could feel the bubbling heavy on the left side of her chest, rattling with liquid she didn't have the strength to cough clear.  _ Alright, maybe not just winded. Cover each other, guys. _

“Uh, Faith, poss it’s different in the future, but I thought men  _ couldn’t have  _ Slayer powers,” Erin asked, finding Faith beside her and Mel after the first influx of demons had charged through and split everyone.   


“They can’t. It’s, like, rule number one,” Faith said, frowning.

“My fault. It’s ‘cause Harth’s my twin. That’s how he got the Slayer memories in the first place,” Mel said brokenly, her face taking on a look of horror as she watched Harth stalk across the far side of the battle, scythe in hand.

_ //The blame does not rest with you, Fray.// _ Giles said. 

Giles's eyes darted from screen to screen. Buffy was still on down on her hands and knees, but slowly looking more steady on them. The rest of them had scrambled to start regrouping and fight back the demons that had surged forward with Harth’s seizure of the scythe.   


Peering closer, Giles tried to spot any unseen threats through the haze. “Strictly speaking, men can -- and, rarely, have -- taken the power of a Slayer. But they can’t  _ endure  _ it,” he continued, finding a stabilising sense of equilibrium in the rote reciting of knowledge when everything was going to hell. And not in the manner they'd intended it to. “The power, and memories that come with it, drive them mad. Which may well have happened to your brother, had he lived.” He must sit Melaka down when this was all over, do what he could to assuage her guilt. “Being a vampire is likely the  _ only _ reason he can do this. The lack of a soul must spare him from the insanity to which a human male would succumb.” - _ Oh god.  _ Buffy was still down, hunched around her ribs and staring downwards at blood splattering onto her hand with each breath. A few yards away Xander was facing off against a huge mud demon, his seemingly-tiny crossbow raised as Dawn rolled away from its feet. And stepping out from behind the mud demon, Harth was about to bring the scythe down on Buffy’s neck.  _ "Buffy!" _ he shouted. 

Giles's scream echoing through his skull, Xander loosed a bolt into where he hoped the towering mud demon's heart might be, reloaded with the smooth efficiency of long practice, and shot the next bolt into Harth’s wrist, cringing in anticipation of the mud demon flattening him from the side. Harth yelped in surprise, halting his swing to look at the shaft of an arrow sticking out of his wrist; the mud demon staggered drunkenly. Xander grabbed Dawn’s arm and hauled with all his might, then they were stumbling back together as the mud demon crashed down where she'd been. Evidently, it had a heart.   


Spotting the big guns of Spike, Angel and Illyria converging on Harth and Buffy, he kept hold of Dawn and backed up to where Wil was making with the fire-slinging against something that looked freakishly like a demogorgon.   


Giles's voice downgraded from 'panicked scream' to 'urgent command'.  _ //But listen -- you all have to  _ ** _ run. _ ** _ History has been changed. We must escape and regroup--// _

“Not a chance,” Angel barked.

“Too right," Spike agreed. Buffy looked in no state to run anywhere, but he had no doubt she'd find a way to stop anyone dragging her from the fight before everyone else was safe. And he had a feeling that there  _ was _ no safe anymore.  _ Sit tight, pet. We've got you covered.   
_

_ (Please, god, let her be okay.)  
_

“ _ Illyria the Merciless _ does not flee from battle,” Illyria snarled, enraged at the suggestion. Wilkins's head appeared, swooping forward to defend his boss, and she threw herself onto it, seizing hold of one of the fleshy mandibles around his mouth and trying to tear it off.

Spike shot a glance at Angel on his left, then launched himself at Harth. Angel leapt with him, and they slammed into Harth in unison, kicking out at a leg each to try and bring him to the ground.

“We stick to the plan! Open a portal to hell, shove ‘em through!” Angel shouted.

“And if we have to go with ‘em, that’s what we do,” Spike added.

“Oh, this is going to be  _ fun, _ ” Harth chuckled, somehow staying upright with their combined weight on top of him.

Willow shot out another jolt of magic, dropping the nearest demon and giving herself a few seconds of breathing space. She turned and grabbed Dawn’s shoulder. "Angel’s right. Dawn, open the portal. I’m still weak, but I’ll try to conjure a whirlwind to force the demons in.”

Dawn shook her head in refusal, but raised her hands and began working on it all the same.   


“Gotta love how going to hell is now the  _ good _ outcome," Xander called over his shoulder to them.

In seconds the portal stood open, rising high into the sky above them and twenty yards across.   


“I- I’ve got it. Willow-” Dawn panted.

“I’m… trying…” Willow gasped, pushing everything she had left into summoning a whirlwind of air to blow the demons towards it.

“Why, thank you, Miss Rosenburg!” Wilkins called, standing firm as the wind whistled past him. “Nothing like a refreshing breeze when you’re slaughtering your enemies.”

Gritting her teeth, Willow dug deeper, down into every fibre of her being for any scrap of untapped power left. Screeching, she shot it out through her hands and at the portal in a flood of golden power, blasting the air into it and creating a vacuum behind her.   


It wasn't enough. The last trickle of power she could summon blinked out with the demons unmoved, and she stumbled back, raising her arms to cover her face from the cloud of smoke and dust that was all she'd drawn up. “I can’t,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry…”

Buffy’s two lurks had been strong in his memories; had looked to be matching up to their reputations while fighting their way through his army earlier, too. Now they were  _ nothing _ , barely amusing irritations as they clung to his shoulders and tried again to wrestle him down. It was  _ exhilarating _ . He bent into a crouch, then surged upright and threw his arms wide, flinging them both from his back to tumble through the air. “All this  _ power!” _ he cried. “I understand why you chose to become a demon, Mayor Wilkins. There’s  _ nothing _ you can’t do!”

“Well, I have a heck of a time playing the piano. But all things considered, the tail’s pretty neat,” Wilkins replied. A moment later, a loud  _ WHRAK  _ split the air as the snake's tail slammed down, smashing Illyria into the earth. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Harth. You sure delivered on your promise,” he said. “We still get rid of the Slayers and all their riff-raff friends -- but we stay on earth, sitting pretty, and the whole world’s ours!” He grinned, slithering up to stand tall behind Harth. “ _ That’s _ what I call a swell day.”

Spike rolled the landing and onto his feet smoothly, in a manner that was generally only possible when no one was watching. But she was. Still hunched around her midsection and with one arm held protectively over her ribs, Buffy was on her feet and running to stand in front of him before he'd fully oriented himself. "I'm okay," she panted, in a voice that sounded anything but.

" _ I'm  _ okay," he said bluntly, moving up beside her. "You've busted a lung."   


She coughed weakly, wincing as it strained her ribs. "I'm standing," she amended. Trying for an ironic smile, she added, "Feel like I'm drowning in Slayer blood. Every vamp's wet dream."

_ Not mine.   
_

It must have shown on his face, because she dropped the front and grabbed onto the hand he was hovering around her, squeezing it tight;  _ I'll be okay. _ He stiffened his arm and squeezed back, supporting her.

Angel stumbled up, joined a moment later by an absolutely livid Illyria. The four of them stared across at Harth, who seemed happy to leave the bulk of his army to their fights around the portal while he dealt with the four of them personally. His largest demons had closed up behind him, making a solid wall of thick skin and hulking muscle.

“The portal’s still open. If Willow can’t give us a hurricane, we have to be the hurricane,” Angel said quietly.   


_ The Whirlwind, 2011 edition.  _ He was tempted to ask Illyria how she felt about being Angel's stand-in for Darla.

“Toss the bad guys into hell personally. And  _ keep _ ‘em there,” Buffy agreed.   


“At least this way it’s all of us. Reckon that’s the best of a bad batch o’ choices,” Spike sighed.   


Buffy began backing away from Harth, edging towards the glow of the portal behind them. When he didn't seem willing to follow, she turned her back on him and began running towards it.   


Spike matched her steps, one eye on the stagger in her gait and the other on the mass of demons ahead.  _ This isn't going to go well _ . Angel tore past them before they'd gone ten feet, and no one had a sword left.

Illyria drew level with them and slowed down, then grabbed Buffy’s arm, slamming them both to a halt. She met his eyes over Buffy’s head, silencing him before he could speak. In the cold inhumanity of her over-large irises there was a look of almost joyous conviction that he'd never seen on her face, and suddenly he got it. Then she picked Buffy up and threw her aside full force. Buffy crashed straight into him, flinging both of them back through the air. He braced himself hard, arms full of Slayer, but she still let out a whimpery gasp of pain as they hit the ground hard _ .   
_

“Fools,” Illyria snarled, running at the demons in front of the portal.   


“Illyria,  _ No!” _ Angel cried, whirling around to hold his hands up in front of her.   


Spike clambered back to his feet, bending over Buffy. She immediately grabbed onto his knee and tried to push herself up, so he lifted her by the arms to stand, holding her against him. She leaned into his chest gratefully, letting him take her weight while she held her side and panted through the resurgence of pain.   


“It’s the energies of the hell dimension, affecting you. You have to  _ fight _ it!” Angel begged Illyria.   


Illyria grabbed Angel's hands and pushed them down, looking into his face. “You are only half right,” she said, then slammed her mouth against his in an urgent kiss. “My warrior,” she said, pulling back. “You will want to come for me. Do not.” She lifted him as if he were weightless, and tossed him back over her shoulder to tumble through the air as she shouted, “Know happiness.” Bending slightly, she glared towards the hell portal and began to glow with a sparking blue energy. “As our enemies will know  _ pain _ ,” she snarled.   


Illyria  _ changed _ as she moved towards the portal, her body growing and transmuting until she stood high above them all in her true form. The god king's body was a hard carapace like that of an ancient trilobite, layered panels of armour the same dull reddish colour as the clothing she wore in her more human form. It was carried on a teeming mass of long tentacles, with more winding out between her plates of armour. “You think you have power?” she snarled at Harth’s army. “With the energies of hell coursing through me…” Her tentacles lashed out in every direction, seizing demons by the throat and gripping tight. “... _ I am power!”  _ she roared.

“She’s assumed her  _ Old One  _ form!” the gigantic fire-slinging demon cried as he was tugged relentlessly across the ground by his neck.

Tentacles whipped up into the sky, snatching hold of flying demons left and right. Wilkins was fleeing, twisting and zigzagging wildly between tentacles.   


Shoved along in front of her, the second-largest of Harth’s fighters attempted to dig his toes into the ground and push back. “It doesn’t matter!" he shouted. "We are many, she is one! Together we can--”

“You can  ** _ go to hell _ ** _ ,” _ Illyria roared, diving into the portal opening in a great swirling mass of tentacles and thrashing limbs.

“_Illyria!_ **_No!_**_” _Angel cried, racing towards the portal.   


Dawn was already closing it, the bottom edge high above the ground as the whole thing shrunk rapidly towards its centre.   


Illyria appeared in the remaining circle of doorway, her regular human-like face reforming on the front of the demonic carapace and her upper tentacles protruding back through the portal. “Close the gate, child,” she told Dawn. “And farewell…” She drew back as the portal shrunk, until the tip of a final tentacle was slithering from view. “...my friends.”   


"Cover Dawnie," Buffy said quickly, "I'll take Harth." Her fingers clenched bruisingly on his shoulder for a second, shouting the words they didn’t have time for, then she was off after the snake, moving steadier now.

“Open it!  _ Open it!” _ Angel cried, grabbing the back of Dawn’s shoulders as Spike shook himself and bolted towards her.

“I… need to rest first,” Dawn panted out, steam rising from her hands as she lowered them and bent over in exhaustion.   


“So back off," Xander snapped over his shoulder. "Besides…” He levelled his crossbow at the wave of vamps and small demons charging towards her. “...We’ve still got problems.”

Spike threw himself into the fight on Dawn's other side, managing to relieve the first vamp of a sword. Off to the right he caught a glimpse of Faith and Erin flanking an exhausted Willow, managing (barely) to hold their own in the onrush. Dawn recovered enough to pick up a sword that fell near her feet a moment later, but stuck close between his back and Xander's with it, moving sluggishly. ' _ Cover Dawnie for me while I run off alone into danger.' Bloody infuriating woman.  _ A flash of pink and blue hair shot past a moment later, still vibrant despite the dust and smoke. " _ Mel!" _ he shouted. "Buffy’s on Harth!"

Mel staked the vamp in front of her and spun back. "He's mine," she yelled, and sprinted off.

“Well, that actually worked out pretty well for us, all things considered,” Wilkins mused, lowering his head to the height of Harth’s shoulder as they stood watching the fight. “Lots less to share, after we take over the world.”

“You know what?" Harth mused. "That…” he turned to consider the snake, “...is a  _ great  _ point." He swung the scythe before Wilkins had time to blink, the mystical blade backed by his new power slicing straight through the serpentine neck with a  _ SHHWAKK.   
_

Wilkins's severed head hit the ground with a  _ thunk _ , his body flopping down behind it. Harth planted a foot on the gushing stump of Wilkins's neck and shook a fist at his unseeing eyes. “The future’s  _ mine _ , you idiot! You think I’m going to  _ share _ it?” he hissed. “The power I have now, I can wipe these bottom-feeders  _ all by myself!” _

“Let’s find out,” Buffy’s voice growled, then her foot smashed into the side of his face.

His glasses - and possibly his nose - shattered with a  crunch _ , _ the frames going flying. Shifting into his demon face, he snarled at her, “You can’t hurt me!  _ Nothing _ can!”   


She answered with a punch to his mouth.   


He swung a fist at her, but she was ready, dropping low to swing a leg into his shins. His feet slid on the blood-drenched skin of the snake, and he stumbled back a few steps to solid ground. “I don’t need to go back to my era and conquer it. I’ll just stay here… shape the future the way I want it!” he shouted. “I’m immortal! I’ll rule  _ forever!" _

At the sound of footsteps behind him, he twisted around and dodged Melaka's opening punch as she ran up. Taking advantage of his distraction, Buffy smashed a foot into the side of his head again in a flying kick. It was getting irritating. He spun the scythe around, smashing the flat of the blade into Mel and tossing her away. His other hand clamped around Buffy’s throat, and he slammed her up against the body of the snake. “This power was wasted on you. Both of you,” he growled, holding her in place. “No wonder you kept it from anyone who’d actually know how to  _ use  _ it-”   


Harth bared his fangs wide, ready to sink them into her throat. With his impossibly strong hand crushing her neck and one of his knees planted in her broken ribcage, she didn't have a hope of throwing him off, and idly wondered whether teeth, hand, or knee would kill her first. She turned her head to the left, baring the old scars on not-Spike's-side of her neck, and leant back as far as she could. Hopefully she'd be able to get in a solid enough kick to Harth’s groin once he was distracted by draining her.

Harth’s mouth lowered to her skin, and she let her eyes scrunch shut in disgusted anticipation. There was a moment of cringing expectation, then instead of biting down, he jerked back with a pained shout.   


“ ** _ AARRHH! _ ** _ ” _ His hand released her throat and he stumbled back a step, taking the pressure off her chest. She rasped in a breath at last.

“That  _ hurt! _ How’d you do that?” he cried.   


“D-didn’t do anything…” she husked out.

“No…” he whispered, human eyes leaping wide and unfocused as his vampire face melted away.

Images crashed through him, each one a blunt axe of emotion slamming through his chest with excruciating pain _ . _ Distantly, he felt himself fall to his knees, mouth opening in a scream as the onslaught continued.  ** “NNAAAAAAGGH!” **

He felt…   


Buffy’s flush of first love as she kissed Angel; her heart breaking as she sent him to hell.

Kendra's bewildered confusion as she lost herself in Drusilla's mesmerising eyes.   


Nikki's chest swell with joy as she held infant son in her arms; her pang of regret as Spike’s hands prepared to break her neck.   


Xin Rong's earnest respect as her watcher instructed her; the way her exhaustion drained out with her life in Spike’s arms.

Sineya's bitterness as she was ordered to leave by the village elders; her fierce determination to protect them anyway.   


The Maiden's faith as she burnt on a stake for saving her village.   


The tears of relief, of loss, of sacrifice.   


He felt them  _ all. _

Harth was on his knees and one hand, the other clutching his head and the scythe forgotten on the ground beside him. The blue-white glow of raw Slayer power flared up again around his face, barbing outwards in splinters of light. Fray was moving in to comfort his screams of pain before she realised what she was doing, and froze beside him with her arms out plaintively. “What’s his need?” she asked Buffy, all her instincts at war in her chest.

“...Too much… how can you  _ stand _ it…” Harth whimpered.

“He already had the memories. But now he’s all Slayer. He’s  _ feeling _ it, too,” Buffy rasped, stumbling over with a hand held to her neck.

Fray looked down at her little brother, hunched and shaking with pain. Then she squatted down and set one hand on his arm soothingly while the other reached for the scythe. “Let’s not give him time to get used to it,” she told Buffy, holding the scythe out for her.

“You sure?” Buffy asked gently, accepting the scythe.   


“My brother’s soul is long gone. Set the rest of him free,” Fray said, sliding her arms around him in a gentle headlock and pulling him back against her chest. “Set us  _ all  _ free.” The bright flare of power faded out, then his face was just Harth's, anxious and afraid. He felt so achingly familiar in her lap, the same frightened little body she'd huddled with in the dark for the first fourteen years of her life. She looked away for a second, blinking off tears. Then watched as Buffy slammed the stake end of the scythe through his chest.

Harth’s whole body jolted, every muscle startling. Then he slumped into her lap, dust beginning to rise like smoke from his skin. The ragged hole over his heart seeped scarlet slowly onto his shirt as he grew lighter by degrees.   


“He’s dusting in… slow motion?” Buffy asked, one hand clapped to her mouth in horror as she lowered the scythe to hang at her thigh.

“Figure Slayer power’s holding him together. But it’s going,” Fray said. “He’s going." She dropped her cheek to his forehead and hugged him closer, tears trickling down her face. “I’m so sorry, Harth…” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, too, Melaka…” Harth murmured, a tear of his own slipping from the corner of one eye. “...Be whole,” he breathed. A trickle of blue-white Slayer power flowed from his mouth with the words, glowing softly, drifting up to her lips and sliding gently between them.   


The memories swooshed down on her like a wave of icy water, shocking and tingling every nerve of her body. She felt her jaw drop -- literally -- as the combined history of every Slayer became a part of her in one instant. A small " _ whuh _ " sound came from her throat; she didn't have the least idea what she'd wanted to say.   


When the initial impact began to ease, she found Buffy helping her to stand, the last of Harth’s dust drifting in the air.

“Are you all right?" Buffy asked. "Did he-”   


“The memories. The Slayer memories. He… gave them to me,” Fray told her, pressing a hand to her temple. “Will I go mental, like him?”

“I think that’s just a guy thing,” Buffy said. “So you’ve got future Slayer memories, huh? Do they tell you what’s coming?” she asked, an anxious note in it.

“No," Fray said, leaning on Buffy’s shoulder gratefully as she…  _ remembered _ . "They stop…  _ now _ ."

“Is our future… gone?” Erin asked, running up with Gates on her shoulder. “What happens next?”

Buffy swept her eyes around frantically. A flash of golden magic lighting up a vamp let her spot Willow; Spike shouted an assurance from somewhere beyond a nearby fire.

_ //They're all okay.//  _ Giles said suddenly in her ear.  _ //Everyone’s on their feet, last few vamps are falling.// _

“Yo, B.!” Faith shouted. “ _ I got my mojo back!”  _ She slammed a stake into the vamp in front of her, grinning wildly, then whirled and threw it like an arrow at one trying to run, dusting him mid-step.

_ //That’s it. It's over.//  _ Giles said.

" _ Thank you, _ " she breathed, shoulders drooping as she sagged in relief. She looked up at Erin as Fray grabbed her and Gates in a hug. “I guess there’s only one way to find out,” Buffy answered her. “By living it.”


	9. PART 4: FINALE - #B

  
  
  


It wasn’t over. The battlefield looked post-apocalypse in the wrong way, littered with burning fires, scorched earth, bodies of demons and blood in a rainbow of shades.

And bodies of young women.   


Buffy made her way to the nearest and bent down, checking for a pulse, for signs of being turned, for the ID tag they all wore. Finding only the last, she read it off into her microphone numbly, and moved on. The others were branching out to do the same, the new urgency of finding and helping anyone who could still be saved taking over from their initial sag of relief at seeing each other alive. Spike was off to her left, favouring one leg but trying to hide it. The look on his face as he crouched down to check another Slayer almost broke through her wall, and she closed her eyes for a second before carrying on. 

He kept one eye on Buffy as they searched, waiting for her to reach the point where she'd let someone order her to sit down; knowing it wouldn't come until they'd checked the whole field and helped everywhere they could. So he watched her pushing herself to keep going, keep hoping, and with every silent pulse point he held his fingers to, she was there with him.

Giles drove up and began helping, and a few minutes later a vanload of women from the Center arrived, all clean and calm, organised and efficient.   


They found Slayers unconscious, or having hidden where they could, too wounded to run or fight. They found one slowly dying, and he hoped it was obvious that the temporary interruption to Slayer healing hadn’t signed her death warrant.   


Giles directed Willow’s team in collecting the wounded and carrying them back to the (thankfully undamaged) Center. The audio system kept on recording names.

At the turned-over ground of the former fenceline Buffy stopped, looking out at the thick brush and trees of the forest and back over the battlefield where the Wiccan girls strode about with medkits and soft glows of magic. Her quiet panting as one lung worked double-time was both reassuring and painful.   


_ //We're about to cast a searching spell out there.//  _ Willow’s voice said.  _ //Don’t move past the fence, or you'll be in the way.// _

Buffy squinted back at a pulsing ring of magic being built up by several women working with Willow. "Okay," she said emotionlessly. Switching off her mic, she walked over to him. "Show me your leg," she demanded in a husky little voice, pointing to it.

Scowling, he flicked back his coat and showed her the set of ragged claw marks running down one thigh. "It's just-" He stopped and tried to grin, "Tis but a flesh wound."

She smiled weakly and murmured the next line, "Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left." Her fingers probed at his leg briefly, before he flicked them away and dropped his coat back into place over it.   


He caught her chin gently and tilted it up, studying the mottling hand-shaped bruise gaining colour on her neck.   


"Harth," she confirmed. "Tried to get his teeth in me."

Wanker was lucky he was dead. "Can I take you home now?" he asked wistfully.   


She shook her head sadly, chin slipping from his fingers. "I need to check the girls inside." She bit the edge of her lip hard, then added, "Gina's lost a leg. Pippa…"

He nodded and dropped his hand, then watched her begin walking back to the building. She was ash-smeared, bloodied and tired, holding an arm around her ribs again, but she kept her feet steady and a look of calm leadership on her face, smiling comfortingly when someone jogged up to ask her a question. She made his heart ache, and she made it brim over with pride.  _ I love you. _

Just inside the back door, an overwrought Kimble was arguing with one of the Wiccans, determined to get back out and help despite the massive lump on her forehead and the unevenly dilated pupils to match. "You!" Buffy snapped, somewhat hoarsely, pointing at her. "Come with me." Too confused to resist a clear order, Kimble came.

In the open foyer on the ground floor, Erin was overseeing the arrival of the wounded, issuing brisk directions in a voice that just  _ dared  _ anyone to disagree. She bristled when Buffy approached, ready to argue that she was both capable and needed here; Buffy gave her a thankful nod and asked where to sit Kimble down.   


On one couch Gina was half-sitting, half-lying, fully conscious and white with pain. The mangled remains of her leg were tidily covered with a blanket, and she beckoned at Buffy desperately with a trembling hand.

"Ambulance is coming," Buffy told her quickly, taking her hand and squeezing it. "Let me get you a shot."

"No," Gina said quickly. "Already offered. Do you know- have you seen Lauren?"

Buffy thought for a second, trying to place where she'd last seen the Slayer. "She was with her team when I told them to go..." She turned her microphone back on. "Giles? Lauren Fenkin?"

_ //Uhh… retreated, didn't appear injured.// _   


"Thanks." She met Gina's eyes again. "Retreated uninjured. Can I get you that shot now?" They were always the same, stubbornly refusing to stand down until they'd checked on the status of their friends and been repeatedly assured their help wasn't needed. It was infuriating.   


"All right," Gina said through gritted teeth. As Buffy gave it to her, Gina pointed at the blanket covering her from the waist down and asked in a whisper, "I'm going to lose the leg, aren't I?"

Buffy sighed, hating everything about this. "Yeah," she said grimly, "you are."

"Okay," Gina whispered, her lip wobbling.   


Spike came in carrying Ray, the sour expression she usually assumed for him replaced with a deep flush of embarrassment. "Broke her ankle in the woods," he told Buffy with a flicker of a smirk. He set Ray down in an empty chair and gave Buffy a softer, sadder smile, then headed back out.

Buffy lifted her eyebrows at Ray, whose blush grew even redder.   


The fires had all been put out, leaving everything darker yet more visible as the air cleared and moonlight shone through. He was surprised to realise it was still only evening; it felt like they'd lived a lifetime since the sun went down.   


"Forest is clear," Willow told him as he came up. "Everyone-" - _ alive-  _ "hurt, is sorted."

Spike nodded, then looked around until he spotted Faith. "Brought the bike," he told her invitingly. "Key's under the left footrest."

"All right," she agreed, grinning in the same tight way that was all any of them could manage. "Mine are under the seat."   


He'd turned to leave when she stopped him with his name. "Spike?"

He looked back. "Yeah?"

"Look after my wife," she said, lightly teasing. Then dropped every hint of humour to add with deadly severity, "I mean it."

"I know," he said, feeling a sense of security in it. The instruction would have bothered him once; been taken as a jab at his ability or intent. Tonight he only appreciated her concern for what it was. "Heard what you said to Willow," he told her. "Before the spell. You're going to do great with that boy." He walked off before she could try to downplay it.

// _ Ma'am? This is Jindt. Are you on radio?// _

Buffy touched her mic. "Thought you were supposed to be running for the hills," she said, not unkindly.   


_ //Yes, ma'am. We regrouped and triaged at one mile, then when our power returned those of us ready and able turned around.// _ She added uncomfortably, _ //In lieu of updated orders.// _

"Okay," Buffy sighed, irritated and relieved in equal measure, and knowing it was hopeless to have expected them to do any different. "Report?"

_ //Nine in ambulances, twenty-three more with less urgent injuries, purple team guarding them and applying first aid. Blue, red, green and yellow are with me, west side of the field.//  _ She paused, then asked quietly,  _ //Permission to attend to the fallen?// _

"Granted," Buffy said with a pang. It was what they needed to do for themselves as much as for the families waiting at home, and they'd mourn together as they carried the girls in and cleaned their faces. She glanced around; Spike had returned empty-handed and was leaning against the wall to rest his leg while he waited, Dawn had gone yawning off upstairs to sleep, no one was in immediate need of assistance. And Erin was giving her a hard-eyed stare that said Buffy was her next target to capture for poking and prodding. "I'm naming you second in Slayer command, behind Faith," she told Jindt. "I'll have someone run out to update purple team."

_ //Yes, ma'am.// _

Flicking off her mic again, she joined Spike by the wall. "Can I clean that leg up now?"

"Yeah..." he told her, "at home. Swapped keys with Faith. You wanna go now, or shall I hold you down for Erin first?"

"Now," she said firmly, and led him to Faith’s truck.

Back at their (he refused to call it his, except aloud) magically-reinforced apartment, Buffy went straight to the bathroom and started complaining about how messy the first aid kit there had got. The pattern was familiar; she wasn't ready to stop moving, helping, repairing; wasn't ready to let feelings catch up. She wouldn't settle down to let him help with what she considered insignificant injuries of her own until she'd assured herself that he, at least, was all taken care of and really was okay. She was already picking up the antiseptic cream she knew he didn't need. Although… it always came with her fingers stroking gentle soothing lines on his skin, so maybe they did need it.

Alone in the bathroom mirror, she was a mess of dirt and dust and blood that belonged mostly to others, her usual grace splintered up into twitchy restlessness. He glanced down at the grime mixed with drying blood on his own thigh, and a single solution to multiple problems appeared. "This is messy as all get," he told her. "Get your clothes off."

"What?"

"Clothes. Off. We'll heal better for having been through the shower." He reached over and turned it on, then peeled off his shirt.   


She froze while the change to her plan filtered through, revealing just how strung out she really was. Then she unzipped her jacket and peeled it off slowly. Lifting the hem of her shirt, she stopped again with a wince as her ribs shifted.

"Here," he murmured, taking the fabric from her fingers. She raised her arms carefully for him to wriggle her shirt off. "I've had practice." The silvery chain holding her ID tag coiled down over her collarbone, and he covered the stark lettering on the tag with his palm as he unclipped it from her neck. Knew she had to wear it if she expected the others to, but he hated the damn thing, hated its blunt capitals spelling out her name and hated its cold impersonality and hated,  _ hated  _ its exact resemblance to the ones he'd read off the cold limp bodies of so many Slayers. He dropped it on the side of the sink, feeling its weight still in his hand. Buffy’s fingers closed on his wrist softly, and she brought his hand back up to her chest, resting it there and watching him quietly, stilling herself for him. The warmth of her throbbed up into him, rhythmic and solid, and the necklace was gone. As he undid her pants she ran a finger over his own tag affectionately; to her it was a talisman, a physical object to represent the belief she needed to be true - that he would always be there wearing it, solid and undead, however beat up he might get. He'd scratched  _ 'property of The Slayer'  _ into the back of it for her, and she smiled at it as she set it aside carefully.   


Divested of clothing, he led her into the shower and watched the water turn a murky red. She knelt down, hand reaching for his leg, and he smiled slightly at himself for the utter lack of innuendo ready on his tongue. Then sat down beside her and bent his knees up. "Let the water do it," he told her, catching her fingers and sliding his own in between them. Undeterred, she brought her other hand up and started cleaning the three deep gouges running across the muscle.

"You didn’t trip over again, did you?" she asked tightly.   


"Never gonna live that down, am I?" He caught himself at the harshness in his tone, and shook away the jab of response before it could leap out. It was too easy for their stressed emotions to spill over into a round of heated accusations at times like this, venting their fears and unshed tears in shouts of,  _ You weren’t being careful enough, how could you let yourself get hurt?  _ "Was blocking Dawn," he said quietly instead. "One of those green things with the claws."

She squeezed his hand tight in answer, leaning into his side carefully. Her other hand ran up and down over his leg, jerkiness smoothing out into a light soothing rhythm as it sluiced away dirt. "Needs holding closed," she observed.   


"Not yet." He tipped his head back against the wall, and she dropped her cheek down to rest on his shoulder. The white-knuckled grip in his chest eased by degrees, and he sorted through it cautiously as it opened up.  _ Buffy on the ground, lips blue from lack of oxygen and splattered red with the blood drowning her. Harth and the scythe and the impossible distance between him and them. Life held frozen with her breath. The creature dodging Dawn’s sword to sweep its claws towards her gut; claws that gleamed wetly with the lifeblood of a Slayer. A strangled gurgle from Buffy’s mic, followed by silence but for Harth’s voice. _ He snatched in a breath, hand clenching on hers as a jolt of fear echoed sharply.   


The fingers on his leg twitched away automatically before resuming more gently. " _ Shh _ ," she whispered, pressing her face further into the curve of his neck.

"Was so scared," he whispered. These things could be safely acknowledged now, here, together.

He felt her tiny nod, and the tremor that ran through her fingers said,  _ me too. _

Talk became an unnecessary extra effort. Eyes half-closed, he listened to the sound of falling water, the trickling and tinkling, the patter and swirl of everything washing away from them. A pale pink swirl of fresh blood began running across his leg, and she left off cleaning it to settle her hand over their already clasped ones. "Take some deep breaths," he murmured. "Get that lung open."

"Not yet," she mumbled.   


"You'll get pneumonia."

"I won't," she said casually. Then added, "After. Let me enjoy the absence of excruciating pain first."

"Okay."

Timeless minutes passed. He picked up the shampoo and covered her in it, drowning out the Harth-stink and green ichor in her hair before washing it all away. She took the bottle from him and returned the favour, fingertips dancing through his hair and rubbing circles on his shoulders. Calm slowly diffused further and further.

By the time they got out she was stifling yawns, all soft and sleepy-eyed in her favourite fluffy towel. His own eyelids felt heavy while he watched her bandage his leg, weighed down with fuzzy relief.

Buffy bypassed the bedroom and lowered herself onto the end of the couch carefully, tucking her legs up and waiting for him. He dragged the duvet from the bed and flicked on the tv, then fetched blood and a bottle of juice from the fridge before joining her, already having to shift several of the cats. Murkle, the big ginger boy, oozed down from the back of the couch as soon as they were settled, tucking into the curve of Buffy’s legs and purring like a jet engine. They'd missed their warm-bodied person too.

Lying on her good side on his chest and staring at an unsubtitled foreign film on TV, she mumbled, "We were supposed to finish something."

"We will. There’s a later now. Get some rest, luv."

Giles rang from the hospital at three AM, shaking them from their half-doze. The news was good, on balance; Pippa would make it, Gina's surgery had gone well. The Slayers that Jindt had sent to the hospital were free of permanent damage, excepting scars (and in one case, the loss of a kidney). Faith had taken Team 23rd Century home with her, and hoped Buffy wouldn't mind that she'd given up their bed for the night. She could picture the grin sent with the words. Spike  _ did _ mind that Faith had traded his bike off to Xander for a vehicle big enough to accommodate the extras, but only until learning that Dawn had claimed the keys and promised to be the only one using them.

Thanking Giles, she dropped the phone to the carpet and melted back onto Spike. "Sleep now," he mumbled. She wanted to object, but it was too much effort. 

She woke up stiff and aching, bleary-eyed and fuzzy. "I thought sleep was supposed to make you feel  _ better, _ " she groaned.   


Spike fumbled for the remote and killed the late morning infomercials that had taken over the TV, then sank back and held still and silent. "You  _ sound _ better," he told her a minute later. "Running on all cylinders again."

"I'm not a car," she complained. He had a point though; her chest felt easier, deeper, less rattly. Just more painful. Very cautiously, she pushed herself up to sit, eyeing the snarl of hair that flopped over one of her eyes ruefully. "I'm a mess."

"You're beautiful," he said instantly.   


"That’s what you said when I killed the sludge demon."

He shrugged. "Standing triumphant, covered in the blood of your enemy? Right stunning, that is."

"It wasn’t blood. And if by 'stunning' you mean 'able to stun dead anything with a nose within twenty feet'..."

"All right, maybe I was trying to preserve your feelings," he said, snickering. "Right now, though… you're a beautiful, bruised, wild-haired mess, with bloodshot eyes. I'd better make us some coffee."

" _ Please, _ " she said in an eager moan.

He stood up, then bent over to press a kiss to her forehead. "Beautiful."

She smiled. "You too."

Timble and Reginald had snuck into the bedroom when Spike ducked out to grab more drinks, and both came padding across the bed to greet her with headbunts and  _ mrreows _ . Hastily covering her bare skin with a blanket ( _ claws!) _ , she ran her hand over each of them in turn, pausing to rub the base of their ears and spine at each pass. She should try to talk Faith into getting a cat. Or something else pet-able. Did Courage like cats? A week of daily visits and one trip to the movies together hadn't given her any clues to guess at the answer. God, she hoped things went well the rest of the week, for the sake of Faith’s sanity if nothing else.   


"I'm still thinking about Dowling," she said when Spike walked back in.

He stopped, shook his head slowly in theatrical woe, and turned to leave again, saying, "Well, I guess I just can't compete."

"Get back here!" she yelped, trying to dive across the bed to grab at him but pulling up short with a hiss of pain.

He was at the bed before she could adjust to try again, eyes full of concern. "Settle down, you silly thing. Here." He handed her one of the drinks he'd fetched, sent the cats out, then stretched out beside her in their place. "Dowling's job offer, or Dowling being sent across state with more than expedient timing this week?"

"Both. And Sam and Riley."

"Still stroking the ego, then," he pouted.

She set her drink down and rolled over carefully, pressing her naked self up against his side and trailing her fingers down his chest. "I could be," she murmured, feeling like she wanted to purr with satisfaction at the way his expression transformed.

An hour later, he reminded her, "Dowling, Sam, Riley. You have thoughts."

"I  _ had _ thoughts. I think they're lost now." He toyed with her hair, languid and content. Thoughts slowly reassembled. "If -  _ if  _ \- I decide to take him up on it, I'm not sure jumping from 'consultant' to 'Slayer leading a police division' is the right way. It'll look… I dunno. Has that whole outside-the-law conspiracy thing going for it. We need to  _ improve _ the public perception of Slayers, not make them look more suspicious."

"Agreed," he said, matter of factly.

"And if I'm going to be rocking the boat once I dig up whatever's going on with the anti-Slayer elements up the chain-"

"You will be."

She smiled. Well, yes, she supposed it was a given. "Then I don’t want a team underneath me being dragged through the mud for doing their jobs. Dowling's crew are good people; they catch on, and they'll all make themselves into targets."

"So…"

"So I was thinking about going through the academy. Official, out in the open. Then asking Dowling to make a space in the Supernatural Division for me to work on my own." He was quiet, untangling a snare from her hair as he waited for the 'but'. "But… is that really the best use of my abilities? And what if…" she paused, embarrassed by the next admission. "What if they, like, brainwash me? I could turn into one of them."

Spike chuckled gently. "Then I'll kidnap you and set you straight." Rolling onto his stomach to see her face better, he said, "You don’t need excuses. And you're not selling them your soul for all eternity…" He tilted his head quizzically. "Unless our lawyer friends are in on it. They’re not, are they?" She rolled her eyes, and he grinned. "So stop overthinking it. Give it a go if you like, and if it doesn't work out, no one's going to think any less of you." He reached for her chin, holding her face on him gently. "And if it does," he said more seriously, "no one will think any less of you for that either."

Somehow, he always pulled out the real problem before she could name it for herself. "Thanks," she murmured, feeling the anxious tangle in one corner of her mind smoothing itself into simple points at last. "God, I've missed you."

He kissed her gently, slow and indulgent, the sort of kiss that always filled her with a warm, cosy sense of being cherished. Settling back again with his head resting on one hand, he said, "My turn. Think we should buy a house?"

"So you can be a  _ suburban _ hundred-and-twenty-year-old cat lady?" she said cheekily, unable to resist.   


"I'm a cat  _ man _ , thank you very much," he said in a posh, Queen's English voice, lifting his chin haughtily. "Far more respectable."

She giggled. "Okay. And what sort of abode do your felines desire?"

"It's not dark enough yet. Still afternoon," Buffy whispered, tugging the blanket further over their heads. She was all soft-eyed and loose-limbed, with a beguiling curl to her lip which promised she was far from done with him.

_ "'It was the lark, and not the nightingale? I have more care to stay than will to go.'" _

She furrowed her eyebrows adorably as she thought. "The Clash?"

"Shakespeare," he told her, frowning in mock dismay. "Maybe you  _ should  _ go back to school."

"Why, when I can just have you read it to me?  _ 'I will it so. Let's talk; it is not night.'" _ She simpered at him; little minx was teasing. "It’s a movie," she whispered. Then said, “But pick a better one. Or one of those Wilde comedies, where everything’s ridiculous but somehow works out perfect-”

He bit the tip of her finger gently in rebuke, growling softly (which was  _ not _ purring, whatever she said). Biting turned to kissing a trail up the side of her hand, then skimming past bruises to reach her lips. When he drew back again to study her eyes, they became wistfully resigned. He pressed his cheek against hers sadly. There was still a mountain of post-battle tasks to sort through, and they'd already stretched this interlude past where they should have. "Come on, luv. We'd best get over there," he said. 

  
  



	10. PART 4: FINALE - #C

** Days Later **

**** Women's Empowerment Center   
  


"Dawn and Willow are ready when you are," Buffy said. "If you still want to do it today, that is. Or, at all."

Fray knocked back the last of her coke and plonked the can down on the bench. "Yep. It's great here and everything, but…"

"It's not where you belong," Buffy finished. "I get it. I just hope…"

"The future we're going back to can't be any  _ more _ messed up," Fray said, shrugging. "And it’s home, recognisable or no."

"We'll do our best." Responsibility for the future seemed to have taken on a whole nother level now; they were the forewarned, in a position to preempt certain things before they transpired. And they were involved, about to have personal stakes in a city two centuries and three thousand miles away. It somehow made it more immediate to know that whatever they did or didn’t do, Fray and Erin would have to live with it. Nevermind the closer to home reminders in Joyce and Courage.   


"You want me to change?" Fray asked, indicating the hoodie she'd borrowed from Buffy’s wardrobe. "Faith said it was your favourite."

Buffy tilted her head, smiling at the metallic vinyl on the logo across the chest of it. "Nah. You keep it. Kinda fitting, you know?" She stopped, pouting her lip. "Well, no, I guess you don't. It was the club we all hung out at back in Sunnydale, before the whole town became a crater. Lots of good times. And, not so good times. But it was The Bronze, then it was gone. Take it with you, for me." It had been a birthday present from Xander, but he'd understand.   


Fray glanced down at it again, smiling. "Okay. Thanks."

Buffy bit her lip, toying with the words she'd been back and forth over since watching Harth dust; still not sure whether they'd be more helpful or harmful. She settled on skimming the specifics. "Fray, about your brother… I had to kill someone I loved once. I-"

"I know," Fray cut in. "Angel told Erin when we asked him about ensouling Harth."

_ Gee, thanks, Angel.  _ "Oh. Well, I know it’s not the same, but I wanted you to know you’re not alone."

"I know," Fray said. "I remember. Not like Harth did, I don't think, but I remember… you kissed him. Then you raised your sword. Because it was what you had to do."

"Oh." She was blushing now, feeling suddenly invaded and exposed.

"Sorry," Fray said awkwardly. "But, um, thanks. Didn't know if it was right to bring it up." She looked down for a breath, then met Buffy’s eyes again. "I still loved him."

"I know. I'm so sorry," Buffy said gently. "And… what happened with Angel - it wasn't my fault. It took me a long time to be able to believe that, no matter how many times people said it. But it’s true. I was just a kid, with no way of knowing what would happen. Once I finally accepted that, it was easier to come to terms with it all."   


Fray nodded slightly. "Yeah. Thanks. I'll go get ready."

  
  


She found Erin in the basement workout room, watching Gates roll around in the ball pit. "Everyone’s ready. Fray's making a final round of goodbyes."   


"Cool." Erin nodded and picked up her jacket, calling to Gates. There was something endearingly rational about her, now that Buffy had sussed out the ulterior motive behind her ridiculous flirting act.

"Hey, um, thanks again for the other night," Buffy said. "In the after. You didn’t have to do any of that, but it made such a difference."

Erin shrugged. "It's my job. Doesn’t switch off just because I'm not wearing my badge."   


"Sorta thought your job was more paperwork and flying car chases than head trauma nurse," Buffy said sceptically.   


"Paperwork, paperwork, disaster relief coordination, paperwork. Paramedic, fireman, law, it all rolls into one at times."   


_ I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back.  _ Shaking the thought aside, she found Erin considering her closely.

"You asked me once. Why I was a law- cop," Erin said.   


_ Why are you a Slayer?  _ Erin had replied. "Right before Fray tasered me," Buffy said wryly.   


Erin snorted proudly. "Yeah. Dropped you like a light. Course, then you knocked me out and stole my gun, so evens. Inspir point - badge puts me in a position to help people. Also, means I get paid for it. It's a tool I use, not something that makes me one. Let's me keep an ear on anyone up there moving at little sis, too."

"Did Faith tell you to talk to me?" she asked, rolling her eyes slightly.   


"Yes. But you asked first," Erin said. "Do it, don't do it, don't make a damn bit of difference to me. But, supernatural division? You’re doing the job either way. I'd be grabbing every weapon available if it were me."

  
  


“It’s open. You sure about this?” Dawn asked again, her hands raised as she held the portal steady in the back garden of the Center. The size of a large double door, it shone blindingly yellow-white and gave exactly zero indication of what might be waiting behind it.

“We’re recreating the last portal to your era as best we can. But without Illyria’s time powers, I can’t guarantee what’s on the other side,” Willow added.   


“You know you’re welcome to stay, right?” Buffy added lightly, in case they hadn't heard the first fifty times.   


“The Fray women never take the easy way,” Erin said, adjusting Gates on her hip.

“Sides, everyone here talks funny,” Fray said, smirking. Buffy held her arms out in offer, and Fray pulled her into Slayer-tight hug. “Thanks for the forcement, sister.”

“Right back at you," Buffy said. "I think."

“Erin. Gates,” Fray said, waving to Dawn as she stepped up to the portal. “Let’s see how big a mess we made.”

The portal flashed yellow as they crossed through it, then they were gone. Everyone stood in nervous half-expectancy until Faith called, "That’s one minute." Then Dawn slowly brought her hands together, and the portal snapped out of existence.   


"Guess that's that," Willow said, stepping back.   


"I'll miss them," Dawn said. "And yes, I know, not allowed a pet monkey. I'll have to wait for my one to grow."

"Did you know he talks?" Faith asked her. "Gates." Everyone looked at her disbelievingly. "Didn’t think so. Guess he didn't like your accents," she said with a grin.

Dawn looked at Buffy for confirmation either way; it wouldn't be the first time Faith had led her on. "I don’t know," she said. "Ask Giles. Or maybe don't, he's already disappointed enough he can't keep interviewing them."

"Come on, wifey," Faith said, nudging Buffy and turning to leave. "Stuff to do."

Ah yes, back to the obsessive cleaning and tidying - followed by re-messying so things would look casual and relaxing - followed by anxiously checking the food supply as if they were expecting an army of starving teenagers, not one small boy. Next would be rehearsing again exactly how they were going to explain the marriage to Courage; so far, they'd avoided both lying to him and expecting him to keep secrets - Buffy was Faith's best friend, and family; Buffy wanted him to be part of her family too; Buffy was taking some time off from other things to spend it getting to know him. Given how worried the boy had been at the social worker's constant reminders that this was only going to be a  trial _ , _ _ 'we’ve got married to show how serious we are about being a family with you'_ should be enough. And not too confusing later. Hopefully. Families were still families when they lived apart, after all; they'd all make it clear that he was gaining another home, not losing part of his.   


"We're doing the mayor-binding at midday," Willow called after Faith. "Should we wait for you?"

Faith thought for a moment, then shook her head, smiling. "Nah. Got better things to do." Swinging her keys on one finger, she turned to Buffy and barked, "Hoi!"   


"Coming!" Buffy said. Six hours and counting until they needed to be at the airport, and she'd surrendered her leadership to Faith’s temporary insanity two days ago.

  
  


**** The 23rd Century.  
  


Erin found herself standing in a bustling city square, surrounded by people strolling almost leisurely as they went about their day. Small trees stood about at regular intervals, providing shade from a clear blue sky above. Even the cars up there looked lazily content, as bright and shiny as the buildings rising up around them. “This…” she murmured, “...this isn’t home.”

“Scan closer. It’s Haddyn,” Mel said, staring around. “Just not  _ our  _ Haddyn.” She peered closer at a highrise further down the street. “Wait… I scan where we are,” she said, pointing in excitement. “ _ Gunther _ lives a jump over! If anyone’s gonna ‘call us, it’s him!”

  
  


**** Gunther’s Home.  
  


“I don’t know you. Never laid eyes on either of you,” Gunther snapped, glaring up from his perfectly-familiar tank.   


“We were  _ just here!” _ Erin insisted, gesticulating at the glass floor. Behind her, Mel hugged her elbows to her sides, one hand covering her mouth in quietly shocked disappointment.   


“If this is some law entrapment scheme, you’re being very clumsy about it. My security will show you and your hirsute pet out…  _ now, _ ” Gunther shouted.   


It didn't make sense. She'd expected them to find something else in the building, Gunther nonexistent except their memories. Like the other radies, who were conspicuously absent from the streets. For a moment when they entered and Mel rushed forward it had crossed her mind that perhaps he'd followed them somehow after all, dipped out of time and made arrangements for his home to be here to return to. But the lack of recognition on his face and the hurt on Mel's had crushed that hope. Not that she liked the dodgy little creep, mind. But he would have been familiar, and he'd cared about Mel in his way.   


"I guess Giles was right," Mel said numbly as they stopped in another park-like pedestrian square. "He's a merman, or something. Must have lived here long before things went downhill in our now."   


“No one knows us. What are we going to do?” Erin asked, hating how worried the question came out. Piggybacking over her shoulders, Gates was twisting and wriggling as he looked from one thing to another.

“Survive, best we can. Did it before, can do it again…” Mel said, trailing off as she spotted someone coming directly towards them.

Carrying themselves with the sinuous casual agility of experienced fighters, four young women stopped a few feet away, facing her and Mel.

“Sister Fray?” the nearest asked.   


“It’s them. Just as the watcher files predicted. I can barely credit it,” the woman on her right said, grinning brightly.

“My Goddess… the reason we’re all here! The reason Slayers even  _ exist… _ why our world is the way it is!” another said.

“Hush, let them breathe,” the woman in front spoke again, lifting her hand to signal the others to keep back. “Melaka, Erin, Gates… I know what you’re wondering. And no… you don’t exist in this time. Not anymore," she said gently. “I’m sorry. Thanks to the watchers’ writings, we know what you did for us. What you gave up.” She leaned forwards slightly, studying their faces with barely-suppressed eagerness. “But if it helps, your actions helped us -- the Slayers -- forge a much better future than the one we understand you came from.” She straightened up, a warm smile spreading as she offered her hand. “And it’s true, no one here knows you now… but we want to.” The other women nodded. “You have a home here. And a family. Always.”

Mel looked at the woman's hand waiting in front of her, then at Erin standing beside her, Gates on her hip. Erin nudged her encouragingly, and Mel took a slow step forward. “Family?” Mel asked, taking the woman's hand. “I… we like the sound of that.”

  
  


**** Two cen earlier, six hours later, San Francisco Airport.  
  


Standing beside Faith, Buffy kept her eyes on the arrivals gate steadily as a hand brushed against hers before sliding inside it. Faith may have looked all brash swagger and confidence now that they were here, but the way the bones in Buffy’s fingers were now being crushed told a different story. Saying anything would only prompt innuendo-filled jokes, a slap on the bum, and a swift retreat, so Buffy squeezed her back and kept her mouth shut.

Eventually Mrs Jarfin appeared, looking exactly like she'd sounded on the phone - grey-haired, sternly countenanced, brisk and efficient, with shoes that tap-tapped in a sharp staccato on the fake wood flooring as she approached. Courage Lehane was hurried along beside her, eyes wide and shadowy after the seven-hour flight, feet dragging slightly as he took extra steps to keep up.

Buffy found her hand free again as Faith shifted almost imperceptibly to take on a dangerously predatory stance. Taking a quick step forward, Buffy waved brightly and put on the brightest smile she could find.  _ No slaying of Mrs Jarfin. _

A sports bag was handed to her, Courage's wrist was dropped, then the woman was off again, vanishing towards the departures end of the airport for her flight back to Philadelphia. Faith stared after her plaintively. So did Buffy. Courage stared at the floor.   


Silence stretched. People bustled past with bags and trolleys, and Faith took a step closer to crouch down in front of him. He was small for his age and lightly built, with a mop of usually unruly dark hair that today had been combed and sprayed into submission until it looked as stiff as Spike’s on bleach day. "All right, kiddo?" Faith asked.   


He touched his head uncomfortably, looking from Faith to where Mrs Jarfin had disappeared. "Yes," he mumbled.   


"Shall we take you home so you can wash that crap out?" Faith bit her lip as the last word left her mouth, then shrugged it off. And possibly all of her intentions about watching her language with it.

"Yes," Courage said, louder.   
  
  


His name washed out with the hairspray; he told Faith shyly in his room afterwards that it had been Rage, until the day Social Services collected him from school, birth certificate in hand.   


"Do you want to change back to it?" Faith asked.   


"If I'm allowed." The mumbling was back.

"Don't worry, little bro," -it flashed through her with more confidence every time she said it- "half of the girls, and…  _ all  _ of the boys that I know don't go by whatever they were first stuck on paper as. Pick whatever, change it whenever, we'll roll with it. Just try not to shorten mine;  _ F _ isn't much better than  _ Ith _ ."

That got a small smile. "Rage, then," he said quietly.   


"Nice to meet you properly, Rage. And I'm sorry, I should have thought to ask you at the start. We'll change it on your school forms too, if you like." She paused, torn between blushing and the sense that she should be reiterating what they were to each other. "I ‘spose you could call me sis if you want. Or Ith, if it makes you laugh."

"Okay."   


Well, a bit of a smile was something for tonight. She glanced around the room again; casting about for instructions maybe. He just looked so  _ little  _ in this big room they'd prepared for him. She'd sort of thought he might want to choose his own stuff to go in it, but now he just looked lost in space with the empty shelves and walls. "Do you want a cocoa before bed?" she asked uncertainly. "Or, like, some ice cream?" That got a cautious nod. Probably felt like he was the only one lost. She sat down on the opposite end of his bed, feet on the floor. Sidelong conversation, that was the way. "See, kiddo, I don't really know what you’re used to, or how I'm supposed to act here," she said gently. "You might have to help me out a bit sometimes, cause this is all new to me too. Never had someone to look after before. Hell, I only moved into this house a few weeks ago, and my bed still feels all strange, and the light switch is in the wrong place… it's awesome to have somewhere to call home at last, but it doesn't quite feel familiar yet. And I'm so glad you're here safe with me, but it might take me a little bit to work out what you like, and how you want things to be. We gotta learn our way around together, yeah?" He was watching her closely now; curious, dubious, hopeful. Another of his careful nods emerged, this one more determined. "So, you like ice cream?"

"Yes… it's my favourite."

"Great. Let's go have some." He followed her down to the kitchen, where she scrummaged up several flavours to choose from. "We eating here, or in front of the TV?"   


After careful deliberation, he said, "TV."

Carrying their bowls, she led him into the living room to join Buffy. "Yo, B! They had his name wrong."   


"Oh?"

"Yes. It's Rage, 'kay?"

"Got it," Buffy said, nodding firmly. "You two leave any ice cream?"

  
  
  


**** One week later   
  


Xander nudged Murkle back again and grabbed the last slice of pizza from the box. "I miss you dudes, right up until I try to eat something," he told the cat.

Spike only grinned and tore a corner off his own piece, tossing it on the floor near Murkle. The cat pounced on it, then eyed them both suspiciously over his mouthful before stalking off to eat it, growling quietly all the way.   


"Have you heard from Billy lately?" Xander asked. "I noticed only Anaheed showed up the other week. Not that I was taking roll call."

"Yeah. Him and Dev are in Thailand, some family thing. Phoned in a panic when they got the messages, but it was all over by then." Spike studied him shrewdly for a moment, then asked, "You worried he might be falling off the sanity train or summat?"

"See, I know Giles said it was different with him, but I didn't get how. I mean, the dude's a verified Slayer."

"A  _ chosen _ one. I don’t think it's the visions and memories per se that drive men insane. Or the raw power. Far as I can make out, it's the incompatibility between the way the demonic essence is channelled and the existing endocrine system in a bloke. Buffy’s brain floods with a certain peptide/steroid blend, and she'll fight smarter, notice things faster, defend more fearlessly. Your brain starts pumping out the same juice, and it'll have no effect until it finally swamps past your testosterone dampeners and smashes into your amygdala like an empathy grenade… I've lost you, haven't I?" Spike sighed, looking slightly ticked off. He still got touchy sometimes when it came to explaining an idea that Xander might not understand to agree with.   


"Yes, but you were making more sense than Giles's  _ 'it's just different' _ ," Xander said apologetically.   


"All right." He thought for a second, then tried again, "That bit of demon gets installed on the wrong hardware system without any way of knowing, and everything crashes. But Billy's link to the Slayer essence was something intentional - planned - not an accident or a theft. Reckon its install settings are adjusted to suit the shape of his hardware… and I'm ending this analogy right here," he snorted, shaking his head wryly. "Look, Slayers are girls because some idiotic man set it up that way. Thought they'd be easier to control." Spike laughed to himself. "But you give the power more agency, maybe provided by the sheer amount of it in the world now, and there's no reason it can't choose to connect with someone else who's allied with it. Surmise the only reason Billy didn't get the full package is that he didn't grow up a potential; their physiology is different from the get-go."

"Okay, see, that I got," Xander said, wiping his fingers on his jeans. "Now, are we gonna get this Xbox on or what?"

  
  


Spike lounged back against the bannister artfully, knowing she'd sense his arrival and come to investigate. Footsteps, eager and tiptoeing, then Buffy opened the door slowly, like she was drawing out the moment of reveal on a present she just knew contained her favourite thing. There was a hint of tension to her, the sort of tired frustration that came from a day of non-physical Slayer-related tasks, but it was already dissolving away.   


"Patrol, m'lady?" he asked.

She watched him in silence for a long minute, almost melting against the door while her eyes ran over him hungrily. He waited, feeling his teasing smirk shift into a happy smile as her eyes settled on his and grew brighter. "Yes," she breathed softly;  _ yes  _ to him and  _ yes _ to patrol and  _ yes _ to anything he might desire before he had to ask. He felt like he could express an idle wish for the moon and she would only say,  _ let me get my coat _ before skipping into the sky to retrieve it. But he didn't want the moon. He'd wanted her sunlight, and here it was. "Come in, I'll just find my coat," she said, stepping back.   


He chuckled, then shook his head when she looked at him curiously. "You do that. How'd it go today?"   


"Okay, I think. Go ask him yourself." She nodded to the living room before skipping off to get ready.   


He squatted down just inside the living room, looking at the hut built between the couch and armchair. "Knock knock."

The blankets which made up the door edged back, and a small face appeared. "Hello." The kid was oddly casual with him; it almost felt as though, unable to fit Spike into any known category of adults, he'd given up with a shrug and took him as he was. The vampire thing was hardly unusual these days; they were hosting talk shows, for goodness sake. Xander was more of a mystery, being a pirate and all.   


"Hello. Heard you went to school today."

"Yes." He ducked back into his hut, then returned with a book. "They gave me this. It's about this boy that has a pet dinosaur."   


"Cool."

"Yeah." He grinned, then vanished again. So far, he was proving nothing like Faith, and nothing like his name. His quietness was seeming more and more like part of his nature than the shyness they'd initially thought; given a choice, he'd rather read or draw than go to the playground.   


Down the hall, Buffy called out to Faith that she was heading out on patrol.   


Rage's head popped back out. "If you see a dinosaur, can you bring it back for me?"

Spike snorted a laugh. "Yep. Any dinosaurs out there, I'll pop a leash on them for you."

"Good."

  
  


**** Two weeks later. San Francisco Police Academy.  
  


“Faith, you’ve got to be more careful. You can’t keep hurting the guys while we’re sparring,” Buffy teased as they stepped outside.   


“It’s not my fault they’re so delicate!” Faith argued, yanking the hair tie from her ponytail. “It’s stupid, we already  _ know _ how to fight.”

“We have to go through the academy to be actual police. It’s not for much longer. The  _ supernatural division _ will be totally different,” Buffy promised again. She repeated it to herself every morning while tucking in her frumpy, starchy,  _ ugly _ uniform shirt and adjusting her tie. Life seemed like a series of countdowns this month, days ticking off impatiently on her internal calendar towards the rainbow-highlighter glitter-paint date that was  _ 'slaying emergency in Finland'. _ Aka,  _ 'six days in a hotel with Spike' _ . And, probably some slaying. They'd find something. Five weeks beyond that, the calendar whispered in tiny letters,  _ court, final custody settlement.  _ Read,  _ giant sigh of relief,  _ followed by carefully edging back home at last.   


“Ahh, I’m just blowin’ off steam. This is good. Pension, health insurance… I feel like a friggin’ grownup,” Faith said, sounding more than a little shocked at herself.

As soon as Buffy had announced her decision, she'd echoed it.  _ Not to cramp your style, B, but I need to do something daytimey… if they'll have me.  _ With a recommendation from Dowling, they would. As Faith told the rest of the gang, she couldn’t sit around all week twiddling her thumbs and waiting for the nights one of them babysat to let her patrol;  _ Gotta get my kicks in somewhere. _ As she told Buffy, she kinda liked the idea of the non-kicking side of it too;  _ Helping people, you know?   
_

“Good morning, angels,” Xander called, pulling up in his pickup truck. “I’m Charlie, F.Y.I. Totally not Bosley. Also, you need a third. I’m working on Dawn, but she wants to finish school, go figure," he finished proudly.   


“You didn’t have to pick us up, Xander,” Buffy said. "Also, afternoon." He'd only have to drop her off before doubling back to the school for Faith to pick up Courage.

“Dawn’s orders. She wanted to make sure you made it. Pointed out you had a way of finding some slimy monster to fight on the way to events,” he said as they slid into the cab beside him.

“Not so much, these days. They’re lying low since we smoked the biggies. Maybe they finally learned their lesson,” Faith said, with only partially sarcastic hope.

“I doubt it,” Buffy said ruefully. “But that’s what we’re here for.”

  
  


**** Xander and Dawn’s Home.  
  


The yard looked great, warmly lit with little orange lantern fairy lights as the sky dimmed towards dusk. They'd dragged the long kitchen table out to hold food, a couple of smaller ones to sit at, and borrowed enough chairs to seat everyone. After the housewarming had become a victim of apocalyptic intrusion, Dawn was determined to make this night even more special. Plus, she was finally getting more sleep between baby feeds, so the brainpower to decorate was much improved.   


“...so now that we’ve been to the future, I’m steering the Center’s work toward trying to prevent the problems we saw there,” Willow told Joyce, beaming. Her voice got even sillier as the baby's hand closed around her finger. "Yes, yes we are!"

Dawn giggled and handed Joyce over to her. Evidently it took more power than even Willow possessed to resist the slip into baby voice.   


“Absolutely not, Andrew. And if the watcher’s council  _ did  _ have a fight song, it would definitely not be ‘Fight Song’,” Giles was saying sternly behind them.   


Undaunted, Andrew leaned closer and gestured reverently across the sky. "Can't you just see it…"

"Andrew," Dawn said, grabbing his hand and pushing it back down to his side, "kitchen. Help me carry plates." Giles raised his plastic cup to her in salute.

"I've been thinking about The Slayer’s Journey in Hell," Andrew said as he followed her.   


"Huh?"

"Harmony's version of The Reckoning. And Fray's version of history. And Fray."

"And again, huh?" Dawn asked, mentally adding up people and plates and spares for unexpected drop-ins.   


"See, I think it went like this. The Slayer and her Vampyres found themselves in a new world, fighting for their very survival…"

She dug out more cups, cutlery, napkins, while Andrew jabbered on excitedly in the background. Maybe he'd had too much sugar already. Plates, serving spoons, bottles of coke and juice and beer and wine.

"Hang on," she said suddenly, as some of his words trickled through. "Say that again? Just the last bit."

"The Passing of the Slayer?"

"Yes."

"After two hundred and forty-six years in their happy quartet, tragedy struck-"

"Now skip ahead."   


Pouting, he did. "And the power of the Slayer was passed on at last, returning to our earthly domain to Call the Potential Melaka Fray of 23rd Century Manhattan."

"Slayers don't live for two hundred and something years," she said slowly.

"Not as far as we know," he admitted. "But what if they just weren't given the chance? They don't die of old age, either. Or perhaps it was just Buffy Summers, once restored to life through dark magics and no longer as human as she had been at her death. Or maybe it was the power of all those Slayers, that she took with her. I haven't finished working that part out yet. I thought I'd ask her for a blood sample to compare to the ones we took six years ago. Her telomeres were distinctly different from the baby Slayers back then."

"Andrew, have you talked to anyone about this?" she asked slowly.

"I emailed Giles the first report and full hypothesis. I, uh, don't know if he's had a chance to read through it."

She looked down at bottles she'd frozen with in her hands more than a minute ago, and gave the fridge door a shove to close it. It was a ridiculous story. But… parts of it slotted in so perfectly to the facts they knew. "Don't talk to anyone about this tonight, okay? I'll make sure Giles calls you about the report tomorrow, then you can investigate together." He looked disappointed, so she added, "This deserves absolutely undivided attention. It's  _ much _ too important to present during a party." That brought back the sugar-rush smile, before it was controlled for a regal nod.

"Indeed."

  
  
  


“Thought you might want a nice tall glass of blood,” Buffy said, stepping down into the living room with said glass in her hands. Well, mug, if anyone wanted to get precise, but that didn't quite have the same ring to it. “You know, I always thought this would get less disgusting with time. And yet.”   


Lounging against the back of the couch with his arms crossed and a distant, pensive look on his face, Spike didn't move from staring at the floor.   


“You okay?” she asked, tilting her head to search out his eyes.   


He looked over at her with the air of someone still climbing from a daydream, then his expression lifted into something softly adoring that made her all warm and snuggly. “Oh, cheers. Yeah, fine… just waiting for the sun to go down before I join the festivities,” he said, shuffling slightly to shake off whatever was on his mind. “Might want to check on Angel, though. I’ve tried calling him a wanker every way I know, but he’s not interested in a fight.” He quirked an eyebrow. “And that’s about my entire repertoire of therapy, so…”

“I plan to,” she said, pressing the mug into his hand. “But I wanted to make sure  _ we’re _ okay.” Now even more so. There was still a tinge of somberness to him, brushed to the side but lingering there.

“Always, Slayer,” he murmured.   


“I’m glad." Not about them, then. At home some days he'd become quiet like this, melancholy and introspective, and unwilling or unable to talk about it. She understood. She'd sit down with a book and wait for him to curl up with his head on her lap like one of the cats, and slowly it would pass. She licked her lips, trying to find safe words to say what she needed to. He was so much better at this than she ever managed to be, and Jindt was only a room away. “As awful as the Reckoning was, seeing you all fighting so hard… caring so much, willing to give up everything… it filled my heart,” she said haltingly. “And it could happen again, any time. So while we’re here, it’s so important we’re happy… and together.”  _ Shove it, eavesdroppers. I said 'you all'. _ “I just don’t want anything to get in the way of that.” She watched his eyes steadily, trusting him to find the unsaid written in her own in that way he always did.  _ Do you need me? Say the word and we'll sneak away this minute. Manufacture excuses and drive to Mexico for a weekend - week - month - ever. I'm here, Spike.   
_

“You’re the one who’s going to die of old age, so don’t blame me. I ain’t going anywhere,” Spike teased gently. He hadn't let up since she'd finally let slip her fear at having had more living birthdays than him, and she was getting to the point where she could chuckle at herself for it too. Balancing the cup on the couch, he pushed himself off it to stand in front of her. “I’m my best around you. All of you…" he added necessarily, yet she heard the genuine feeling behind it. Dropping his voice to the lowest whisper, he finished, "But especially you.” He raised his arms, inviting a hug. “Nothing’s ever going to change that.”

She wrapped herself around him gratefully. “That goes both ways, William Pratt.”   


Tension she hadn't known she'd had melted away in his arms, and she felt him relaxing against her in turn. After a few moments he dropped his head down on her shoulder and leaned into her more, making her feel weightless as they supported and balanced each other.

When he finally pulled back and met her eyes, his were lighter, steadier, free from whatever had been haunting him. "I'm okay, now," he told her quietly. "Don't make plans to bail."

"You'll tell me if you're not?"   


"I will," he said, softly promising. Reaching up, he brushed her hair back from her eye gently. "Sides, I've got a speech to make later."

"Oh?" she said, feeling herself flush lightly. It felt like they were all getting far too carried away with this.

"Yep. Something about… how much I admire you for this. It's a big thing, luv. Hard, and scary, but you never hesitated for a second on your own account. And, worthwhile. At least as big as saving the world. Like… building a world. A future." He chuckled, shaking his head. "I dunno, haven't finished writing it yet."

Her vision blurred slightly as a flood of emotion welled up into her eyes, and she glanced down, blinking swiftly.   


"You don’t like it?" he asked teasingly, but with a hint of genuine worry hiding underneath.   


She met his eyes again quickly. "Spike…" Words deserted her, but he got it.   


"Good then," he said, smiling. "Now go and drag that wanker out so we can get started. I don’t want to be dateless."

"Spike," she said again, finally grabbing hold of the words. "I didn't do this on my own."

"Yeah yeah, I'll say something about Faith too," he said, but she couldn't miss the pleased smile beneath the teasing.

  
  
  


With the sort of hushed caution usually reserved for funerals, Buffy nudged open the door to Xander and Dawn’s spare room, then lingered in the doorway with one hand still on the knob. “Hey,” she said softly.   


“Hey,” Angel mumbled back, without looking up. He was  _ deep  _ in his broodfest, sitting slumped on the end of his bed, morose-looking eyes trained on the carpet at his feet. The room was in darkness, only the hall light spilling over her shoulder for her to make him out by.

“You know we’re all ready to go after Illyria any time,” she said, stepping into the room and letting light in with her.

“She asked me not to before she went. She knew it’s too dangerous to reopen the portal when so many demons might come through,” Angel said, looking up at last. “She wants us to give her time to kill as many as she can. I’m just worried…”

“That they’ll kill her first?”   


“That by the time we get there, she’ll want to  _ stay _ ," he corrected, turning his face back to the floor. “But it’s what she wants. And she’s right.” Angel sighed. “We’re both immortals. I can wait.”

Buffy crossed the room and placed a hand on his shoulder sympathetically. He was like an old lost dog, dragging his blanket of dejection around in search of a warm corner to hide in. She couldn’t begin to understand his relationship with Illyria (and Spike was equally flummoxed by it), but her loss had obviously hit him hard, and that she could empathise with. “What’re you going to do in the meantime? Go back to England?”   


“I think… I’d like to stay around here a while." He looked up sharply and added, “I mean, if you don’t mind.”

“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Buffy chided gently. “Who doesn’t want the people they love around?” It felt good to be able to say it at last, without anyone taking it the wrong way. Via hope  _ or _ jealousy. And she was all about the platonic  _ I love you' _ s these days; she'd never said the words as much as she was now that the non-platonic recipient's ones had to be hidden in between. All the extra ones were… nice. She'd have to keep it up once the necessity wore off.

She bent over and hugged his head onto her shoulder, rubbing circles on his back when he slumped against her sadly with his eyes still on the floor.  _ Deep  _ in broodland.   


"Come on," she said as she pulled away. "Spike’s worried about you, and we're not starting the party without you." Pushing and prodding, she got him to his feet and steered him from the room.

“Oi, it’s dark. Fancy joining the party?” Spike asked as Angel followed her down the stairs.   


Angel looked surprised and then heartened to find Spike obviously waiting for him, and his gloomy slouch lifted slightly. She led them both onto the back porch, where they stopped to lean on the railing together. Spike produced a bottle of beer from his coat pocket, flicked off the cap, then passed it to Angel silently before reaching for his own.   
  


Buffy perched on the bannister of the stairs leading down to the lawn, wanting to hit pause and take everything in for a moment. Xander turned away from the grill to pass her up a drink, then waved his BBQ fork at a nearby table, pointing out the plate of cheese slices that had become traditional at every scooby dinner party. Dawn came over to say something to him, and he almost barbecued his hand in his complete absorption in smiling at her and Joyce. Giles and Andrew were engaged in an intense game of scrabble, deaf to the rest of the world. Willow was admiring (again) the police badge Faith was finally allowed to wear home (and was more shyly proud of than any of them had foreseen). Faith was rocking the uniform shirt, too - unbuttoned and hanging loose over her jeans and singlet with the sleeves rolled, she somehow made it look casually sexy instead of the frumpy-starchy thing Buffy’s felt like (she'd stripped to her t-shirt as soon as she got out of the car). Willow waved the plate of raspberry pie she was holding and pointed beneath the big table, where one small foot could be seen protruding from the hut made by the tablecloth. Faith rolled her eyes, and Willow dropped down to continue her ongoing attempt to spoil Rage entirely, which she'd proclaimed her official godmotherly duty. He seemed more settled the last few days, everything that was strange and new slowly becoming routine and known. For all of them.   


And over everyone hung the massive banner the women at the Center had painted for them -  _ Congratulations Rage, Buffy & Faith.  _ As soon as someone had raised the idea of holding a belated wedding party,  _ everyone  _ had dived on it. Her protestations had all failed, rebutted with lines about  _ lending legitimacy  _ and  _ it'll look less suspicious later if you go all in now. _ Eventually she'd worked out the real reason for the enthusiasm - this was something they could all  _ do _ . Every one of them had schemed and lied and helped cover for them since this began, but every one of them was still eager to do more. They were family, and therefore Rage was family, and if throwing a wedding party was how they could stand up for him, then they were damn well having a wedding party. Besides, they had plenty of reasons to celebrate. 

  
  
  


_ And what am I going to do now? _

_ Seems like my world’s always been changing. So fast it makes my head spin. _

_ Cheerleader to Slayer. Slayer to General. General to nobody. Girl to woman. _

_ If there’s ever been a time I could kick back, give it all up, it’s now. Monsters at a low, Slayers at an all-time high. _

_ And I can definitely give myself a break. But the quiet life… I’m not sure that’s me. _

_ There’s always going to be something that needs fixing. Someone who needs help. I don’t think I'll ever be able to just ignore that. _

_ And because I had to go and change the future, more so than ever, I have absolutely no idea what’s coming. _

_ The trouble with changing the world is… _

_ ...worth it. _

_ \-- Buffy Summers, early 21st century. (From  _ Tales of the Slayers, _ Watcher Press, 2027.) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and we're done. Now tell me this isn't canon, I bloody dare you.
> 
> Thank you so much everyone who's read/liked/commented, it's been awesome sharing my frustrations with the season with you all. I hope this has made it more palatable in places. 💙


End file.
